Margie Day

Margie Day (born Margaret Hoffler, April 6, 1926 – September 18, 2014), later Margie Day Walker, was an American R&B singer who had success in the 1950s and 1960s.

Early life and start in show business

Margaret Hoffler was born and brought up in Norfolk, Virginia, one of the four children of Kemper Hoffler and his wife Ledora. She grew up listening to the gospel, opera, swing and jazz records bought by her brothers or played on the radio, and took piano lessons.

After graduating from high school, she went to Virginia State College to study music, but soon decided that that was not what she wanted. She returned home to work in a cafeteria at a local military base, where she met a soldier who played piano, and occasionally sang with him. He introduced her to local musician Luther Wilson, whose band she joined in 1945. After a few months she relocated to New York, and began singing at a lounge in Newark, New Jersey. During this period she began using the stage name Margie Day. She joined a vocal quartet, "Four Bars and a Melody", and recorded a single, "Near You", with them on the Savoy label in 1947.