Sugar Pie de Santo née Umpeleya Marsema Balinton
Rhythm and Blues pioneer Sugar Pie de Santo was born in Brooklyn in 1935 to a Filipino father and an African-American mother and christened Umpeleya Marsema Balinton. (Umpeleya from ‘ampalaya’?) As a kid ‘Peliya’ hung out with a neighbor named Jamesetta Hawkins, who became the R&B legend Etta James. Peliya took to entering singing contests in San Franciso, and she won so often that she was asked to stop joining. The full story is here.
Thanks to Ige for the alert.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
August 4th, 2010 at 12:50
My kind of my music! Truly a class act yet sad that she was born way ahead of Youtube.
August 4th, 2010 at 13:44
‘She started entering contests in San Francisco, won so often, they told her to stop entering…’ Ha ha ha. Talk about politics in showbiz. Anyhow, she’s got the chops, yes, but those days people weren’t ready for backflipping R&B performers. What on earth?! LOL. Remember, Ella Fitzgerald, or Billie Holiday known for their deeply personal and intimate approach to singing, were still around that time which people revere as the epitome of the genre. To be honest, as an R&B/jazz music lover and Youtube’s most indefatigable researcher, I only bumped into Umpeleya through Miss JZ’s dogged cataloging of Filipino greats. I say those backflips did her in. No wonder she didn’t make a big wave. But I am her fan now. Backflips or no backflips. >>> http://www.stclairevents.com/p7hg_img_3/fullsize/Sugar_Pie_DeSanto_2small_fs.jpg
August 4th, 2010 at 19:45
I saw the picture, read your paragraph, and stopped at the pronoun “she.” I scrolled up to the picture again because I had to make sure that Sugar Pie was phenotypically a “she.” I listened to her sing, and then had to look at the picture again. That voice, that pout, and those backflips–fabulous.
August 11th, 2010 at 07:52
You might find this interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlHneF-6ogs&feature=related
Eartha Kitt singing Waray-waray. I must say the accent is not bad at all.