Vocalist and actress, Lady B.J. Crosby dies

6th April 2015   ·   0 Comments

By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer

“She went from a little New Orleans girl to a Broadway star,” says Vernel Bagneris of Lady B.J. Crosby, his lifelong friend and musical and theatrical cohort.

Born Joanne Clayton, the vocalist and actress gained national acclaim in the Tony-nominated production of “Smokey Joe’s Café: The Songs of Leiber and Stoller.” She was also nominated as the musical’s Best Featured Actress. Lady B.J. Crosby, or simply B.J. as she was often called, died on Monday, March 27, 2015, at the age of 62.

Crosby began singing in the Baptist church. Her vocal talents were introduced to a larger audience as a member of the Gospel Soul Children. “She was their soloist,” says Bagneris, emphasizing her important position in the noted choir.

Pianist and vocalist Henry Butler takes credit for giving Crosby the name Lady B.J., a handle that stuck with her throughout her career.

“What happened was, I met her when she was about 21 or 22 and she was performing over at Mason’s (on South Claiborne Avenue),” Butler explains. “She was known as Black Jack over there. I said to myself, ‘If I was going to bring her to the other side of town, that name wouldn’t work as well.’ She was working mostly at Mason’s and other little, small black clubs. I was doing more stuff in bigger clubs. I talked to her about it and said I would call her Lady B.J.”

“We started working at Lu & Charlie’s and then we kind of branched out from there to a ton of French Quarter places,” he adds, mentioning spots like Rosie’s. Some 20 years later, Butler and B.J. would team up again to tour as far away as Brazil.

Crosby’s talents as an actress gained attention in the late 1970s for her work in Bagneris’ musical, “One Mo’ Time,” that was first presented at the Toulouse Theater before it headed to New York.

“She could do whatever it was that she was assigned to do,” praises Bagneris. “If she had to move on stage she moved – she danced – if she had to sing, she would sing, if she had to act, she acted. Her talent was stupendous.”

Before heading to Los Angeles in 1987, Crosby was heard teamed with the Ellis Marsalis Quartet on the Rounder Records Release, The New New Orleans Music. While working with Butler, her repertoire had been primarily soul/R&B from the likes of vocalists Aretha Franklin and Chaka Khan. When teamed with Marsalis on the album and at shows at Snug Harbor, the material moved to jazz standards.

Crosby headed to New York in 1995 and found great success. Her stage credits included the aforementioned “Smokey Joe’s Café,” the cast album of which won a Grammy, “Dreamgirls,” “Staggerlee,” “Chicago, and “Harlem Song.” She also appeared on television on such popular shows as “Law & Order: SVU” and “Ally McBeal.”

“Everybody in New York knew her as a Broadway star,” Bagneris says. “She was talented and she used it. She didn’t take it as a gift that she used now and then—she used it every day. She was hard-working and just tried to get ahead and to be the best she could.”

Just as Crosby expected much from herself, she required the same of other people.

“She had a great mothering, nurturing spirit,” says pianist/vocalist Davell Crawford who knew Lady B.J. his entire life. “She wanted and demanded the best from everybody around her. She demanded that from the musicians that she worked with and even from the audience that came to see her. You came ready to listen; you came ready to receive whatever she had.”

When Crosby came back to New Orleans in 2007, she recorded her first album as leader, Best of Your Heart. Often performing at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, her last appearance there was in 2014 at the Gospel Tent singing in a group backing Jo “Cool” Davis.

“She had a gift so amazingly special that once you heard her, you’d never forget it and you wanted to discover more of her after that first time,” says Crawford. “She was one of the strongest women that I’ve ever met.”

Funeral services will be held Saturday, April 11, at First Emanuel Baptist Church, 1829 Carondelet Street, with Pastor Charles J. Southall III., presiding. Visitation will be held from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Services to begin at 10 a.m. Gaskin, Southall, Gordon and Gordon Funeral Home is in charge of the arrangement.

A Memorial Tribute is also planned for Sunday, April 12, 6 p.m. in the Cook Theatre on Dillard University’s campus.

This article originally published in the April 6, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.