Biography
Known as "the Blues Woman," Marion Abernathy counted among the small circle of performers who helped launch Specialty Records. After suffering betrayal in an earlier record-label partnership, founder Art Rupe assembled the company—then operating under the name Juke Box Records—in 1944. On that imprint he again applied the nickname "the Blues Woman" to Abernathy, who became only the second artist issued by the label when she appeared, accompanied by the Buddy Banks Sextet, on "Voo-It! Voo-It!," a number jointly written by saxman Banks and guitarist William "Frosty" Pyles. As many as a dozen sides from those sessions may survive.