Episode #176: Ed Eckstine (Billy Eckstine)

Today on the Rarified Heir Podcast we are talking to Ed Eckstine, son of singer Billy Eckstine and actress/model Carolle Drake. Our conversation with Ed was fun, fascinating, edifying and above all, full of stories of his life as the child of a celebrity but also his own career in the music industry. Our only regret was not keeping Ed for another 90 minutes because he has stories for days. We barely scratched the surface. Part two is a must.

Many of us only know Billy Eckstine as a jazz & pop singer whose baritone voice and smooth delivery made him one of the most in-demand singers from the 1930s well into the 1950s. But he also was a guitar player, trumpet player and this Billy Eckstine & his Orchestra was the first Bebop Big Band and his players and vocalists were a who’s who of Jazz - Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Sarah Vaughan, Pearl Bailey, and Lena Horne all were part of the band in the 1950s.

By 1950, his popularity rivaled Sinatra - which as you will hear wasn’t a rivalry at all between these two friends. It was Eckstine’s talent as well as his good looks and dapper attire that made him perhaps the first black entertainer to become a crossover star in the segregated 1950s America. But as we learn from our conversation with Ed, one photo in a major American magazine essentially put an end to all that in the must ugly and vile way possible. But to hear Ed tell it, this terrible incident was a blessing in disguise as it opened up doors for him outside America and made him an international star, touring well into the 1980s in Europe, Australia and Japan.

Our conversation with Ed also focused on his own career in the music industry that took him from journalist to publicist to head of Quincy Jones Qwest Productions to stints at Polygram, Arista and as the President of Mercury Records. As Nabil Ayers in the New York Times said, “Eckstine’s story is unique because he was the first black person to be let in — to be allowed by the predominantly white music industry to helm one of its largest entities.”

This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a story. Ed Eckstine’s is like none other.