Susannah McCorkle

Susannah McCorkle ranked among the most skilled interpreters of song lyrics working in jazz during the 1980s and 1990s. Although she seldom engaged in extended improvisation, the emotional depth she brought to the words she delivered made her an ideal vehicle for lyricists.

She settled in England in 1971 and collaborated there with Dick Sudhalter and Keith Ingham, among other musicians, while also appearing in concerts alongside visiting Americans such as Bobby Hackett, Ben Webster, and Dexter Gordon. In 1975 McCorkle performed at the Riverboat jazz room in Manhattan, where she drew widespread notice, and she made two albums in England as tributes to Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer that later appeared in the United States on Inner City.

She returned to the United States by 1980 and recorded a set devoted to Yip Harburg together with her fourth album for Inner City. When that label ceased operations she moved to Pausa, but from the late 1980s onward she recorded regularly for Concord. Her repertoire, previously centered on pre-bop material, broadened to embrace Brazilian songs and blues, and by the mid-1990s Susannah McCorkle stood at the forefront of her profession.

Career setbacks ultimately intensified her longstanding depression, a condition she kept carefully concealed, leading to her suicide in New York City in May 2001.