Martha Tilton, 91; Swing-Band Vocalist And '40s Solo Artist

Martha Tilton, 91, a glamorous blond singer of the big-band era called "Liltin' Miss Tilton" for her easy-mannered vocals and the last surviving star of Benny Goodman's landmark 1938 swing concert at Carnegie Hall, died Dec. 8 at her home in Los Angeles. No cause of death was given by the family.

Within a few years of quitting high school, Ms. Tilton was performing with Goodman, a moody clarinetist-bandleader who led one of the country's top swing bands. Goodman hired her after his favorite singer, Helen Ward, left to get married, and he was never entirely satisfied with any of her successors, whether Ms. Tilton, Helen Forrest or Peggy Lee.

Still, as a featured vocalist with Goodman from 1937 to 1939, Ms. Tilton recorded more than 80 songs, among them the definitive version of Ziggy Elman and Johnny Mercer's "And the Angels Sing." She also received ovations after singing "Loch Lomond" and "Bei Mir Bist Du Schon" at the band's Carnegie Hall concert on Jan. 16, 1938.

Held at an august location, Goodman's concert was considered a musical benchmark because it bestowed cultural legitimacy on a fairly new form of dance music and its jitterbugging young fans.

Ms. Tilton appeared at the concert with such estimable Goodman sidemen as trumpeter Harry James, pianist Teddy Wilson and drummer Gene Krupa. But by the next year, a series of defections and firings left Goodman frustrated.

Metronome magazine jazz critic George T. Simon wrote: "Benny, in a masterful display of tactlessness, suggested to Martha Tilton that as long as so many were leaving, perhaps she'd like to go, too. Martha probably didn't want to go, and certainly the men in the band, who had become attached to her, didn't want her to. But with Benny acting as he did, there was very little else she could do. She was immediately replaced by a very vivacious and pretty Texan, Mrs. Harry James, better known as Louise Tobin."

Ms. Tilton had a vibrant career as a solo artist for several more years. She appeared often on radio, went on USO tours and starred in two films for zero-budget PRC studios ("Swing Hostess" and "Crime, Inc."). She dubbed the singing voices of major film stars, notably Barbara Stanwyck during Krupa's thrilling "Drum Boogie" routine in "Ball of Fire" (1941).

The next year, Ms. Tilton was among the first artists signed by Capitol Records, a company co-founded by her friend Johnny Mercer. She spent much of the 1940s recording early versions of songs that became standards, such as "I'll Walk Alone," "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" and "A Stranger in Town."

"If she's not quite one of the immortals -- a Doris Day or a Margaret Whiting -- she comes darn close, and on the 44 Capitol sides is at least frequently in the orbit of, say, Dinah Shore," jazz authority Will Friedwald wrote.

Martha Ellen Tilton was born Nov. 14, 1915, in Corpus Christi, Tex., and raised in Los Angeles, where her father was a banker. She came from a close-knit musical family, and her sister, Liz Tilton, sang with Bob Crosby and Jan Garber, among other big-band leaders, in the 1930s and 1940s.

Martha Tilton had no particular career aspirations until a friend of her father's heard her sing and got her an audition at a local radio station. That led to work singing at the Ambassador Hotel's Coconut Grove, followed by a stint touring with Hal Grayson's band.

In 1937, she was singing with a popular vocal quartet called "Three Hits and a Miss" that was hired for Goodman's "Camel Caravan" radio program. Not long after, she was hired to replace Ward, after a strange audition in which Goodman mysteriously left the room in the middle of her song.

She largely retired after marrying a World War II flying ace and aerospace executive in 1953 but reprised "And the Angels Sing" for the film "The Benny Goodman Story" in 1955.

Her two early marriages, to Dave Thomas and former Goodman manager Leonard Vannerson, ended in divorce. A son from her first marriage died.

Survivors include her third husband, James L. Brooks of Los Angeles; a son from her second marriage; a daughter from her third marriage; and five grandchildren.