Alberta Hunter: My Castle's Rockin'.

• Author: Rothenberg, Robert S.

Many show business personalities have made comebacks, but how many have done so at the age of 82? Alberta Hunter, the legendary blues singer, after a career dating back to the first decade of the century, gave it up to become a practical nurse in 1956. Twenty years later, forced to retire when, as the hospital thought, she reached 70 (she actually was 82, having lied about her age), she was lured back into singing, once again delighting audiences with her special brand of funky blues and bawdy lyrics. This fascinating video combines a 1984 performance at the Cookery in New York's Greenwich Village with a documentary of Hunter's life, with photographs and rare film footage tracing her career. Each decade brought new triumphs, whether singing with King Oliver and Louis Armstrong in Chicago during the 191 Os; dazzling Paris in the 1920s along with Josephine Baker and other performers of Le...