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Hearing Blossom Dearie sing is a surreal experience. She is a vocalist who has a uniqueness,

charm, and range unlike any other. A natural cabaret singer best suited to comedic songs and other"light"repertoire, Blossom can just as quickly turn around and draw you into the most aching, beautiful love song possible. She is the girl you fall in love with because her lyrics leave you with the impression that she too is in love, and you can not help but smile. A singer, pianist and songwriter, with a 'wispy, little-girlish' voice, Dearie is regarded as one of the great supper club singers (Line)

Her father was of Scottish and Irish descent; her mother emigrated from Oslo, Norway. Countless rumors surround the origin of Blossom’s name, but the story that has outlived all others has been that she gained the name “Blossom” when her brothers arrived home to greet their new baby sister with a basket full of peach blossoms. The name Dearie, according to Blossom, is a fairly common Scottish name – a topic on which she has done an extensive amount of research. (29 Richardson)

She began taking piano lessons when she was five, and studied classical music until she was in her teens, when she played in her high school dance band and began to listen to jazz. Some of Blossom’s early influences included Art Tatum, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Martha Tilton, who sang with the Benny Goodman Band. Dearie graduated from high school in the mid-40s and moved to New York City from her hometown of East Durham, nestled in the Catskill Mountains of Upstate New York, to pursue a music career. She joined the Blue Flames, a vocal group within the Woody Herman Big Band, and then sang with the Blue Reys, a similar formation in the Alvino Rey Band.

In 1952, while working at the Chantilly Club in Greenwich Village, Dearie met Nicole Barclay who, with her husband, owned Barclay Records. At her [Nicole’s]...