Bixie Crawford

Born 1921 Died: 1988 Born Birdie Marjorie Hairston in 1921 in Guthrie, seat of the Logan County, in north-central Oklahoma just to the north of Oklahoma City. She attended Fisk and Lincoln Universities, where she majored in music, studying the piano, the alto sax, and the congas. Benny Carter heard her singing at a picnic in a park one day and hired her the next day. After about a year in Carter's band, she worked in the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra shortly before the leader died in 1947. She did three months with Count Basie and gigged with Louis Jordan in 1949-1950, then became a schoolteacher in Los Angeles. When Count Basie reestablished his big band in 1951, she was invited to join and remained with him for about three years. In the early sixties, she returned to school teaching. She was then known as Bixie Crawford Wyatt. She died in 1988 in Culver Cirty, California.