\n<\/p>\n
Betty Bonney was already a veteran big-band vocalist at 17 when she joined Les Brown and His Orchestra in 1941 \u2014 in time to sing the praises of the New York Yankees star Joe DiMaggio as he was racking up his major-league-record 56-game hitting streak.<\/p>\n
While performing that summer at a club in Armonk, N.Y., in Westchester County, the band \u201cgot caught up in the streak,\u201d Mr. Brown told Newsday in 1990, and \u201cwould announce it from the bandstand every night if Joe had gotten another hit, or if he was coming to bat late in the game still without a hit.\u201d<\/p>\n
As DiMaggio piled up hits \u2014 from mid-May to mid-July \u2014 a New York City disc jockey, Alan Courtney, and the band\u2019s arranger, Ben Homer, wrote a jaunty tune, \u201cJoltin\u2019 Joe DiMaggio,\u201d<\/a> which Ms. Bonney sang in her smooth, elegant style at the Armonk club while band members goofed around with baseball gloves, bats and caps, Mr. Brown said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The song was also heard regularly on the band\u2019s radio show and released in September as a 78 r.p.m. record; according to Billboard magazine, it was the 93rd-best-selling single of 1941.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The song starts off with Ms. Bonney asking, \u201cHello, Joe, whaddaya know?\u201d to which the clarinetist Ben Most, playing the part of DiMaggio, replies, \u201cWe need a hit, so here I go.\u201d<\/p>\n She later sings:<\/p>\n He started baseball\u2019s famous streak<\/em> Win Goulden, a columnist for The Central New Jersey Home News of New Brunswick, praised not only the song but also Ms. Bonney\u2019s performance of it. \u201cYou should really see Miss Bonney do the number in person to appreciate it,\u201d he wrote, \u201cif you get what we\u2019re driving at.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just her voice that puts over a song,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n DiMaggio threatened to sue Mr. Courtney \u201cfor using his name,\u201d Mr. Brown told Newsday, but relented when he learned that Mr. Courtney \u201cdidn\u2019t have a cent.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Ms. Bonney died on Jan. 29 in Calabasas, Calif. She was 100. Her son Trevor Lindsey confirmed the death, in an assisted living facility.<\/p>\n Betty Jane Bonney was born on March 8, 1924, in Bridgeport, Conn., and grew up mainly in Norfolk, Va. Her father, Albert, was a railroad purchasing clerk. Her mother, Doris (Anderson) Bonney, supported Betty\u2019s musical career from an early age: She accompanied her to local radio gigs, starting when she was 6, and joined her on the road as a teenager with the Auburn Cavaliers, a band based in the South.<\/p>\n In 1941, when she was still a teenager, Betty sang with the bands of Charlie Spivak and Jimmy James before joining Mr. Brown\u2019s, where she replaced Doris Day. (Ms. Day would return in 1943.)<\/p>\n \u201cJoltin\u2019 Joe DiMaggio\u201d was featured in an episode of Ken Burns\u2019s documentary series \u201cBaseball\u201d in 1994. It became one of the enduring songs about baseball players, along with \u201cTalkin\u2019 Baseball (Willie, Mickey and the Duke<\/a>),\u201d by Terry Cashman; \u201cSay Hey (The Willie Mays Song),\u201d by the Treniers; and \u201cDid You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball?\u201d<\/a> by Count Basie and His Orchestra.<\/p>\n Ms. Bonney recorded other songs with the Brown band, including \u201cLament to Love,<\/a>\u201d Fats Waller\u2019s \u201cAll That Meat and No Potatoes<\/a>\u201d and \u201cHe\u2019s 1-A in the Army (and He\u2019s A-1 in My Heart)<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n She left Les Brown soon after marrying Douglas Broyles Jr., an Army officer, in June 1942. But after Mr. Broyles went overseas to serve in World War II, she resumed her singing career with the bands of Jan Savitt, Jerry Wald and Frankie Carle. Then, as a solo act, she recorded several songs for RCA, including \u201cHo Hum (Wish I Were Someone in Love),\u201d<\/a> which put her on the cover of Billboard in 1945.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cShe\u2019s had all the breaks any thrush could ask for,\u201d the magazine wrote, \u201ccrowded into the 13 years she\u2019s been chirping in showbiz.\u201d<\/p>\n In 1949, Ms. Bonney toured in a national production of the hit Broadway musical comedy \u201cHigh Button Shoes.\u201d The next year, the bandleader Sammy Kaye hired her and gave her a new name: Judy Johnson, which she would use for the rest of her career.<\/p>\n \u201cSammy had a thing about changing singers\u2019 names for good luck,\u201d she told Newsday.<\/p>\n Her time as a vocalist with Mr. Kaye was brief. Under her new name, she sang on Sid Caesar\u2019s landmark television sketch-comedy series, \u201cYour Show of Shows,\u201d from 1950 to 1953 and was the star of a nightclub act, \u201cJudy Johnson and Her Dates,\u201d in 1953.<\/p>\n \u201cVery few people knew her as Betty,\u201d her son Trevor said in an interview. \u201cShe didn\u2019t correct them because she was just as comfortable as Judy.\u201d Privately, she was known as Judy Lindsey.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In 1954, Ms. Bonney divorced Mr. Broyles and married Mort Lindsey<\/a>, who went on to be the bandleader on Merv Griffin\u2019s television talk show. She made occasional radio, TV, club and stage appearances, including replacing Helen Gallagher as Miss Adelaide<\/a> in the revival of \u201cGuys and Dolls\u201d at New York City Center in 1955.<\/p>\n She also worked on \u201cThe Judy Garland Show\u201d \u2014 where Mr. Lindsey led the band \u2014 as Ms. Garland\u2019s stand-in during studio rehearsals<\/a> in 1963 and 1964.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In the 1980s and \u201990s, Ms. Bonney sang occasionally with Mr. Griffin and his band (conducted by Mr. Lindsey) in various venues, including Mr. Griffin\u2019s Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, N.J., and the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif.<\/p>\n In addition to her son Trevor, from her marriage to Mr. Lindsey, she is survived by another son, Steve, also from that marriage; a daughter, Bonney Dunn, from her marriage to Mr. Broyles; three stepchildren; seven grandchildren; and a number of great-grandchildren. Mort Lindsey died in 2012.<\/p>\n Trevor Lindsey said that his mother\u2019s father pushed her into singing for money when she was 5 because he was barely earning a living.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cMom would recount stories of him bringing her to a bar in the middle of the day and saying, \u2018Do your little act,\u2019\u201d he said, \u201cand people would throw money at her.\u201d<\/p>\n He added, \u201cShe never forgave him for that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
That\u2019s got us all aglow<\/em>
He\u2019s just a man and not a freak<\/em>
Joltin\u2019 Joe DiMaggio.<\/em><\/p>\n