Varetta Mamie Dillard (February 3, 1933 – October 4, 1993) was an American rhythm and blues singer in the 1950s whose biggest hit was "Mercy, Mr. Percy".
She was born in Harlem, New York, and spent much of her childhood in hospital due to a congenital bone condition. By her mid-teens, her condition had stabilised, though she remained unable to walk without crutches or other assistance. She met Carl Feaster of doo-wop group The Chords, who encouraged her to enter talent contests as a singer, and in 1951 she won two consecutive competitions at the Apollo Theater. She was signed by Savoy Records, and had her first recording session with the company in September 1951.
Although her early singles were commercially unsuccessful, she was invited by Alan Freed to perform at what later became recognised as the first major rock and roll concert: the Moondog Coronation Ball held in Cleveland, Ohio on March 21, 1952. Because of concerns over crowd safety, the concert was shut down by the authorities after the first song by Paul "Hucklebuck" Williams, and Dillard did not perform in the event.
However, her next record, "Easy, Easy Baby", reached No. 8 on the Billboard R&B chart in July 1952, being especially popular in the South. In September 1952, Varetta became part of a Gale Agency package tour built around Arthur Prysock. Put together by Ben DeCosta, it also starred Joan Shaw (DeCosta's wife), Peppermint Harris, and the Blues Express Orchestra. She then toured with Oran "Hot Lips" Page and The Five Keys before the record company paired her with singer H-Bomb Ferguson for a series of duets.
After further tours with Larry Darnell and Wynonie Harris, she had her biggest hit in mid 1953 with "Mercy, Mr. Percy", which reached No. 6 on the R&B chart. The track was recorded on May 15, 1953 with George Kelly (tenor sax), Haywood Henry (baritone sax), Lonnie Johnson (guitar), Lee Anderson (piano), Prince Babbs (bass), and Gene Brooks (drums), and was arranged by Leroy Kirkland. During that summer she married Ronald Mack in Manhattan.
The song was nationally popular and became her theme song, but she had difficulty following it up and took time off to have a daughter with her husband Ronald Mack. Her next major success, and final chart hit, came in early 1955 when she recorded "Johnny Has Gone", a tribute to singer Johnny Ace who had died as a result of an accidentally self-inflicted gunshot. Dillard's recording was one of the more popular of several tributes to Ace and reached No. 6 on the R&B chart. She continued to tour, and starred in the first rock and roll show in New Jersey in May 1955.
She left the Savoy label in early 1956 and signed for the RCA subsidiary label Groove, where she issued several singles, including "I Miss You Jimmy", a tribute to James Dean. In 1957, she moved to the main RCA label, and recorded tracks backed by The Cookies and produced by Leiber and Stoller, but they were again unsuccessful commercially, and she was dropped by the label in early 1958. She went on to record for the Triumph label set up by Herb Abramson, and then for the Club label, a subsidiary of MGM. Her last recordings were in 1961.
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| Valletta with Leroy Kirkland |
In the early 1960s, she joined her husband's (Ronald Mack) gospel group, the Tri-Odds, who were active in the Civil Rights Movement. Shortly after the breakup of the group Varetta fell a victim to the curse of the once successful: alcoholism and sank into oblivion, working at various 9 to 5 jobs. She later worked as a music therapist, with chronically ill children. She got divorced in the mid 70’s and by 1978 she had stopped drinking and married Irving Jackson.
By 1989 she was working as a group sales clerk for Gray Line (a company that offered bus tours of New York City). In 1991 (exact date unknown), Varetta married George Wisotte Simmons in Brooklyn. Since he married again in 1993, It is assumed that this marriage, too, ended in divorce after only a short while.
She died of cancer in 1993 at the age of 60 in Brooklyn, New York.
(Edited from Wikipedia, Marv Goldberg & Bear Family CD liner notes )