How does one write the story of one’s own mother? Being an artist was just one facet of her life. And, as a daughter one does not necessarily see that side first. Who was the artist Linda Taylor? When writing her story, tracing her life as a singer, I re-discovered her.
She has not left me any recordings, just some pictures and a few newspaper articles. Obviously some radio recordings for the French Swiss Radio in Geneva were made but I never managed to get hold of any of them. The Swiss National Sound Archives have saved a recording with the first group she was working with. Then, in the early nineties, her friend and group mate, Hedda, gave Linda her old songbook back which she had kept during all those years. It was handwritten by the man who discovered her, the great Tibor Kasics.
Jazz comes home
My mamma Lina, was brought up in the 1930s in Switzerland by her mother. Her parents had divorced; my grand-mother was what would be called today a working mum. She did everything to offer her daughter the same start in life that she would have had when growing up with her father, a Swiss weightlifting champion and amateur singer. Lina learned French, had dancing and music lessons, without knowing that she was laying the foundation for her future career.
The war came and even though Switzerland was not suffering hardship in its big cities, windows wore heavy darkening curtains to dim the lights, while the people in their homes heard the intimidating sounds of the bombers flying over Switzerland to drop their deadly loads over Nazi-Germany. Jazz music from shellac records competed with the droning of the planes, excluding war and death from Lina’s home. Here somewhere must have been the very source for the deep love of music and entertainment she began to develop. She would sing all the time, in the school choir and at home to her records.
I want to be a singer
She earned her pocket money walking an Airedale of an older lady, it was topped up by her mother. Lina spent it for records and lipstick; the little girl had grown into a teenager that copied the looks of her favourite film stars. When Lina was 16, she desperately wanted to see her favourite band performing, the show was a must for her and her best friend. Too broke to buy tickets for the show and too shy to ask for money at home, ingenuity was needed. They wrote a letter to the management of the concert hall, explaining that they were penniless but promising young talents and, asked for free admission.
The free tickets came! After the show, Lina went straight away to one of the musicians and told him that she wanted to become a singer and what she would have to do for that.
It must have been this mixture of determination, self-assuredness and a lot of naivety, paired with daredevilry and a great sense for fun that opened her the door to an important audition. One of the well-known trios in the early 40s were “Les Ondelines”, who later became “Les Trois Babettes”, for whom Tibor Kasics wrote and arranged. Tibor Kasics was a classical composer of renown from Hungary but the conservative mentality of art agents and art lovers in Switzerland in the 1940s, pushed him towards operettas, cabaret and other light entertainment. When one of the Babette-girls left, Mr. Kasics held an audition.
Lina becomes Linda
Lina went to the audition and was immediately taken. She knew the songs she had learnt from her records but had no experience as a singer. She had a nice voice and was a pretty girl full of enthusiasm. Tibor Kasics was looking for a fresh new face and being an open-minded man, he decided to give Lina the chance she was hoping for.
He added the "d" to her first name, Lina became Linda, Italian turns Spanish, she invented Taylor and pronounced it French for extra glamour. True to her lifetime motto: “You just need luck”, Linda Taylor was born.
Mademoiselle Babette
At seventeen she toured with the girls, singing the shallow popular music of the mid-war years. It offered the light distraction the conservative radio stations such as Radio Beromünster and the national preventive censorship would endorse.
The girls were a fun-loving end-twen from St. Gall, Hilde, by ten years Linda’s senior and; a Jewish refugee from Frankfurt, Hedda, the Communist daughter of a baroness and acting manager of the group, twenty years her senior.
Linda led a very privileged life in luxury hotels, in Geneva, St. Moritz or Arosa, where in those days only wealthy people spent their holidays. She even performed for the Prince of Liechtenstein in his Château. Switzerland was a safe haven during World War II. Wealthy industrialists, upperclass holidaymakers, foreign nobility fleeing the war, Swiss generals, but also rich immigrants, refugees and war profiteers; not to forget impostors and swindlers and; sometimes even, men with a German accent that were taken for the Gestapo; these were the colourful audiences for which the Babettes performed. The girls were marvelled, amused and for Lina it was a school for life. She was not blinded by names, titles or even money.
Hollywood calling
Hedda knew Josef von Sternberg from her days in Berlin. She had met him briefly again when he was already the known director in Hollywood. Always eager to help a friend and to be involved in someone’s career, Hedda made sure he returned to Hollywood with a picture of her friend Linda Taylor. The offer to go to Hollywood came but Linda turned it down. Away from home, from friends, her mother, in another world, she just wouldn’t do it. “I knew I would not get the kick out of it”, - she always said. A number of times I had pointed out that she even bore a resemblance to Greta Garbo, could have been a film star, asking her why she had not taken this unique chance. “Hollywood is not everything”, she laughed and that was the end of it.
Jazz Lady
The fifties came and along with the general spirit of economic optimism, she started her solo career. Music for the troops. The Americans, British and Canadians loved jazz and swing. During the war Glenn Miller had been the big name, now it was Ted Heath, the UK bandleader, and in rising-again Germany it was Hugo Strasser or newcomer Max Greger. War-stricken Europe wanted to forget the bad times and have fun. Linda started working with a big Swiss name, Rio de Gregori, then worked with new German and British bands. Like Greger, she played at the officers’ clubs and toured all over Europe. AFN Radio played the latest hits; Linda listened and learned them. She took Sarah Vaughn, Shirley Horn and Nina Simone into her repertoire. She wanted to develop her voice and become better, be a great jazz singer.
She had the time of her life, met important people, life was an-always-on-top merry-go-around, but what really mattered was music. Some people wanted to further her career and open doors for her. One of them was a rich Indian, Mr Tata, who had even invited her to perform at the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai, then Bombay, with a British band. Hesitant, unsure, afraid of being influenced and asked to sing music she didn’t want to sing anymore, she rejected this offer too, along with a few other ones. Music was important but she had become selective and would not sing just anything to please people.
Music came second
Her career break came when she married and I was introduced to this world. She was an older mother; caring and bringing up a child, she took that very seriously. Music came second now.
I had asked her many times why she had stopped performing, why she had not thought more of her career, why she had given up everything. “You can’t have a child, be married and travel”, she explained, “You can’t do that”. It took me years to understand this “you can’t do that”.
Although from an entirely different generation, I have always known what the role models of the 1930s - 1960s were. I have always known too that women had to ask their husband for permission to take a job, or that in Switzerland women could not vote until 1971. A decent, socially accepted woman, would not work to leave her children. Until the mid-70s, being married, taking care of husband and children was considered a normal task and not as a conservative, outdated lifestyle. Today, I think it’s so unfortunate that my mother had to give up her life as a singer for social conventions, the ideas and pressure of a not very flexible society. She certainly also wanted to pay tribute to her mother for her own upbringing, and last but not least, like always in her life, she wanted to do things the right way.
This story is my tribute to her, to my mother, to the artist. She never lost her interest in music, in singing, she still had an excellent voice until her old age, years after her professional years and all her life, she remained an entertainer. She was always on a stage, a natural centre of attraction, she never ceased to amuse herself and others. She entertained, was funny, made others laugh, no matter if they were friends or family or strangers in the street.
Making so many people happy, - that probably was her greatest achievement in life.