Fun facts about rose marie mccoy
- •
If a picture is worth 1,000 words, the photo of a New York City luncheon (above) hosted by famed radio DJ and promoter Alan Freed speaks volumes. He’s surrounded by 57 songwriters, music executives and producers, all of them male. Except one — Rose Marie McCoy.
As soul and R&B singer Maxine Brown recalled, McCoy “knew how to hang in there with the big boys.” At a time when women, much less Black women, didn’t have a place at the table, McCoy made a place for herself. She wrote or collaborated on over 800 songs over 60 years for some of the 20th century’s best-known artists. So why have so few people heard of her?
It took a 2009 radio documentary heard on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered – Lady Writes the Blues: The Life of Rose McCoy, to remind listeners of just who Rose Marie McCoy was and why she matters.
Arkansas Blues Delta
Rose Marie McCoy was born in a drafty tin-roofed shack in Oneida, AR, in 1922. In the heart of the Arkansas Blues Delta, McCoy described it as “the kind of place you pass through without even knowing you’re passing through it.” Sh
- •
Rose Marie McCoy
Rose Marie Hinton McCoy emerged onto the white, male-dominated music scene in the early 1950s to become a highly sought-after songwriter whose career lasted over six decades. More than 360 artists have recorded her tunes, including Nat King Cole, Elvis Presley, and Sarah Vaughan.
Marie Hinton was born in Oneida, Arkansas, on April 19, 1922, to Levi Hinton and Celetia Brazil Hinton. She and her older brother and sister attended the area’s two-room elementary school, went to church regularly, and worked on the forty-acre farm their parents rented. Though Oneida was located in the Mississippi Delta (often referred to as the birthplace of the blues) and except for the occasional singing of a field hand, the blues was not heard in that small town. Many considered it to be “the devil’s music.”
It was eighteen miles away in Helena that Marie became acquainted with the blues, where she often stood outside a club called The Hole in the Wall to hear top bluesmen perform. Her grandparents lived in Helena, Arkansas, and she was sent there to attend Eliza Miller High School
- •
Rose Marie McCoy
American singer-songwriter
Rose Marie McCoy | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Rose Marie Hinton |
| Born | (1922-04-19)April 19, 1922 Oneida, Arkansas, U.S. |
| Died | January 20, 2015(2015-01-20) (aged 92) Champaign, Illinois, U.S. |
| Genres | Country, jazz, rhythm & blues, soul, traditional pop |
| Occupation(s) | Songwriter, singer |
| Years active | 1942–2015 |
Musical artist
Rose Marie McCoy (April 19, 1922 – January 20, 2015) was an American songwriter. She began her career as an aspiring singer before becoming a prolific songwriter during the 1950s and 1960s. Many artists have recorded some of the over 800 songs she published, including Big Maybelle, James Brown, Ruth Brown, Nat King Cole, Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, and Ike & Tina Turner.
Life and career
Early life
McCoy was born Rose Marie Hinton to Levi and Celetia Brazil Hinton in Oneida, Arkansas, on April 19, 1922.[1] Her father was a farmer. She later married James McCoy and moved to New York City with $6 in her pocket to pursue a singing career in 1942.[2&
Copyright ©bilders.pages.dev 2025