View source for Aileen Stanley

{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2011}}
{{Infobox musical artist
| name            = Aileen Stanley
| image           = Aileen Stanley.jpg
| caption         = Stanley in 1919
| image_size      =
| birth_name      = Maude Elsie Aileen Muggeridge
| alias           =
| birth_date      = {{Birth date|1893|03|21|mf=y}}
| birth_place     = [[Chicago, Illinois]]
| death_date      = {{death date and age|1982|03|24|1893|03|21|mf=y}}
| death_place     = [[Los Angeles, California]]
| occupation      = [[Singing|Singer]]
| genre           =
| instrument      = Vocals
| years_active    =
| label           =
| website         =
| current_members =
| past_members    = 
}}
[[File:Carolina in the Morning (operatic edition) sheet music cover.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Stanley on the cover of 1922 sheet music for "[[Carolina in the Morning]]".]]

'''Aileen Stanley''', born '''Maude Elsie Aileen Muggeridge''' (March 21, 1893 – March 24, 1982), was one of the most popular [[United States|American]] [[singing|singer]]s of the early 1920s.

==Early life==
Born in [[Chicago, Illinois]], Stanley was the youngest of four children of English parents Robert S. Maggeridge and Maria (née Capewell) Muggeridge who had immigrated from England in 1887. Her sister Elsie {{proper name|Sherrif}} Muggeridge, died of typhoid in August 1892, passing it on to their father who died of the disease seven months before Aileen's birth. Her widowed mother resided in Chicago along with her surviving siblings, brothers Stanley and Robert Jr.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jazzage1920s.com/aileenstanley/aileenstanley.php|title=Aileen Stanley|website=Jazzage1920s.com}}</ref>

==Performances and recordings==
From childhood, she sang and danced in [[vaudeville]] with her older brother Stanley as '''Stanley and Aileen''', with the encouragement of their widowed mother. After her brother left the act, Aileen started performing solo, forming her stage name by reversing the name of the old family billing.

{{Listen
| filename     = Home again blues (1921 sound recording).mp3
| title        = Home Again Blues
| description  = A 1921 recording of Stanley performing a song by [[Irving Berlin]] and [[Harry Akst]]
}}

Stanley performed in vaudeville and [[cabaret]]s.  In 1920 she was a hit in [[New York City]] in the revue show ''Silks And Satins'' and made the first of her numerous [[gramophone record|recordings]] the same year. The majority of her records in the '20s were for the [[Victor Talking Machine Company]], but she also recorded with other [[record label|labels]] with [[recording studio]]s in the New York City area, including [[Edison Records|Edison]], [[Pathe Records|Pathe]], [[Okeh Records|Okeh]], [[Brunswick Records|Brunswick]], [[Vocalion Records|Vocalion]], [[Gennett Records|Gennett]] and others. On some of her early recordings she was accompanied by [[Rosario Bourdon]]'s Orchestra.  Many of her records sold well at the time.  According to [[Joel Whitman]], her most successful early recordings included "[[My Mammy]]" (1921), "Sweet Indiana Home" (1922), both written by [[Walter Donaldson (songwriter)|Walter Donaldson]]; she also recorded other Walter Donaldson songs including "My Little Bimbo Down on a Bamboo Isle" (1920), "Dixie Highway" (1922), "[[Carolina in the Morning]]" (1922), "Back Where The Daffodils Grow" (1924), and "Don't be angry with me" (1926).<ref name="whitburn memories">{{cite book| last1 = Whitburn| first1 = Joel| title = Pop Memories 1890-1954: The History of American Popular Music| location = Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin| publisher = Record Research, Inc.| year = 1986| pages = [https://archive.org/details/joelwpopmemories00whit/page/407 407–408]| isbn = 0-89820-083-0| url-access = registration| url = https://archive.org/details/joelwpopmemories00whit/page/407}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/talent/detail/29868/Stanley_Aileen_vocalist_soprano_vocal|title = Stanley, Aileen - Discography of American Historical Recordings}}</ref>

Between 1922 and 1924, and again in the late '20s, Victor Records produced a popular series of records pairing Stanley with singer [[Billy Murray (singer)|Billy Murray]].   One of Stanley's 1925 Victor recordings, "[[When My Sugar Walks Down the Street]]", in which she shared the vocal with newcomer [[Gene Austin]], helped launch Austin's illustrious career.<ref>Shilkret, Nathaniel, ed. Niel Shell and Barbara Shilkret, Nathaniel Shilkret: Sixty Years in the Music Business, Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland, 2005, pp. 73--74. {{ISBN|0-8108-5128-8}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PzbYj-kKjXIC&q=When+My+Sugar+Walks+Down+the+Street&pg=PA242|author1=Lornell, Kip |author2=Laird, Tracey E.W. |title=Shreveport sounds in black and white|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|year=2008|page=242|isbn=978-1-934110-42-3}}</ref>  She recorded [[J. Russel Robinson]] and Con Conrad's 1920 jazz standard "Singin' the Blues", released as Victor 18703. She recorded the Paul Whiteman and Fred Rose composition "[[Flamin' Mamie]]" on October 5, 1925, and released it as Victor 19828-A accompanied on ukulele by [[Billy "Uke" Carpenter]] who provided "[[Eefing|jazz effects]]".

Stanley also recorded for [[Black Swan Records]], a label purportedly devoted only to [[African-American]] artists, under the pseudonyms '''Mamie Jones''' and '''Georgia Gorham'''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://78records.wordpress.com/tag/aileen-stanley/|title=aileen stanley - 78 RECORDS, CYLINDER RECORDS & VINTAGE PHONOGRAPHS|website=78records.wordpress.com}}</ref>{{Better source needed|date=January 2020}} Her handling of [[blues]] material was similar to that of some of the northern black vaudeville singers of the time. Her stage appearances billed her as "The Phonograph Girl" and "The Girl With The Personality."  In later life she was overheard{{by whom|date=January 2020}} to say that the song "I'll Get By" was written for her.

==Later life==
Stanley was said to have invested heavily in the [[stock market]] and was one of the many who lost most of their life's savings in the [[Wall Street Crash 1929|Stock Market Crash of 1929]].  Around 1931 Stanley moved to [[London]], where she made more records for [[His Master's Voice (British record label)|His Master's Voice]] from 1934 through 1937, and once confided "strictly entre nous" that she unwittingly ended her own romance when she introduced Wallis Simpson to Edward, Prince of Wales, at the home of Thelma, Lady Furness.  In her later years she worked as a singing teacher and vocal coach.

She died in 1982 in [[Los Angeles, California]], aged 89, and was buried (under the name Aileen Stanley Muggeridge) at [[Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)|Forest Lawn Memorial Park]], [[Glendale, California|Glendale]].

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Aileen Stanley}}
* [http://vintage-recordings.com/realaudio/vocalshow12b07.ram .ram audio clips of two of her records on vintage-recordings.com]
* [https://archive.org/details/BillyMurrayAileenStanley  Duets of Aileen Stanley and Billy Murray on Internet Archive's site archive.org]
* [http://archives.nypl.org/the/18844 Grayce S. Burian collection of Aileen Stanley materials, 1898-1983], held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, [[New York Public Library for the Performing Arts]]
* {{Find a Grave|18037442}}
* [http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?query_type=keyword&query=Aileen+Stanley&nq=1 Aileen Stanley cylinder recordings], from the [[UCSB Cylinder Audio Archive]] at the [[University of California, Santa Barbara]] Library.

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stanley, Aileen}}
[[Category:1893 births]]
[[Category:1982 deaths]]
[[Category:American women pop singers]]
[[Category:Singers from Chicago]]
[[Category:American vaudeville performers]]
[[Category:Gennett Records artists]]
[[Category:American jazz singers]]
[[Category:Victor Records artists]]
[[Category:Vocalion Records artists]]
[[Category:Pathé Records artists]]
[[Category:Okeh Records artists]]
[[Category:Edison Records artists]]
[[Category:Brunswick Records artists]]
[[Category:20th-century American women singers]]
[[Category:Jazz musicians from Illinois]]
[[Category:20th-century American singers]]