Hadda Brooks

Hadda Brooks (October 29, 1916 – November 21, 2002), was an American pianist, vocalist and composer.

She was born Hadda Hapgood on October 29, 1916 and raised in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles, by her parents, who had migrated to California from the South. Her mother, Goldie Wright, was a doctor and her father, John Hapgood, a deputy sheriff. Her grandfather, Samuel Alexander Hopgood (October 22, 1857 – November 30, 1944), moved to California from Atlanta, Georgia, and proved to be an enormous influence on Brooks. He introduced her to theater and the operatic voices of Amelita Galli-Curci and Enrico Caruso. In her youth she formally studied classical music with an Italian piano instructor, Florence Bruni, with whom she trained for twenty years. She attended the University of Chicago, and later, returned to Los Angeles. She came to love the subtle comedy of black theater and vaudeville entertainer and singer Bert Williams. Brooks began playing piano professionally in the early 1940s at a tap-dance studio owned by Hollywood choreographer and dancer Willie Covan. For ten dollars a week, she played the popular tunes of the day while Covan worked with such stars as Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, and Shirley Temple.

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