Duke was born in
Sandersville, Georgia, and reportedly started singing with gospel groups including the Queen of Gospel
Albertina Walker and
The Caravans, though this has been questioned. By 1963 she was working in New York City on sessions and as a backing singer at the
Apollo Theatre. She also recorded some
demos for
Motown Records, but none were ever released. This release on
Jay Boy Records was not a success, so she continued working as a session singer, mainly in Philadelphia. She also sang back-up on
Nina Simone's live album,
A Very Rare Evening, recorded in Germany in 1969. but success was cut short when the record company collapsed. Duke recorded a second album,
A Legend in Her Own Time, with
Swamp Dogg, issued on the Mankind label in 1971. However, it was not commercially successful, and her career at one point became confused with that of "the real"
Doris Duke, a white heiress, who began performing with a
gospel choir in
New Jersey. Having remarried, and using the name
Doris Logan, she temporarily retired to bring up her young children, before undergoing another divorce. In 1973, Duke recorded unsuccessfully for
Bob Shad's Mainstream label, before being signed to the British Contempo label in 1974. Her subsequent album
Woman, recorded in London and
arranged by
Gerry Shury, received good reviews but few sales, and thereafter she retired from the music business. An album called
Funky Fox, issued on the Manhattan label in 1981, was credited to "Sister Doris Duke", although the tracks are in fact by other artists. However, Duke did make one further single, "I'll Make a Sweet Man (Out of You)", on the Beantown label in
Boston, in 1981. Later efforts by music fans to rediscover Duke were fruitless. She was also sister to Jeraldine and Joyce Curry, who recorded as The Heartstoppers for the
All Platinum label in the early 1970s. A
CD coupling ''I'm a Loser
and A Legend in Her Own Time'', with several non-album tracks, was released by
Ace Records in 2005. Doris Curry Willingham, known as Doris Duke, died aged 77 on March 21, 2019. ==References==