say “ And now , a great big Flamingo club welcome to , er , Norma Deloris Egstrom !” when “ Please put your hands together for . . . Miss ! . . . Peggy !! . . . Lee !!!!” was much more likely to get the crowd going . It is part of the mythology of showbusiness that Frances Ethel Gumm became Judy Garland , Mary Elfrieda Scruggs became Mary Lou Williams , Eleanora Fagan became Billie Holiday , Barbara Carole Coppersmith became mucheasier-to-remember Barbara Carroll and Annie Mae Bullock turned into Tina Turner . It goes on to this day , though not many swing and jazz singers would have favoured Lady Gaga over Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta . . .
It happened to guys , as well , of course , but there was an additional dimension to the renaming of would-be female stars , a sense that a hot property was being redefined in the industry ’ s own image , which was predominantly an image created by men . One wonders how some of these women were addressed back home . When was the last time Peggy Lee was addressed by Norma ? On her deathbed , Dusty Springfield said that all she wanted was to go back to being plain Mary O ’ Brien , which begs the obvious question about whether a new identity is a total transformation or merely a public disguise . Certainly , there was a side of Nina Simone that never stopped being Miss Eunice Waymon from Tryon .
Some renamings are inevitably more significant than others . In 1954 , Eunice Kathleen Waymon became Nina Simone . Somewhat unusually , she adopted the name herself and it was a kind of disguise that led to a transformation into one of the most individual and singular talents in modern music . But not necessarily the talent that she had anticipated as a young piano student . It ’ s important to establish that the artist who wished to
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