Bette McLaurin

Bette McLaurin (born December 6, 1929) is an American singer best known for her jazz-influenced ballad and R&B performances in the 1950s. Two of her recordings, "I May Hate Myself In The Morning" and "Only A Rose" (1953) reached the Billboard pop charts.

McLaurin was born in North Carolina on December 6, 1929. She studied classical music and aspired to become a concert singer, before her mother persuaded her to start a career in popular music. Bette had one sister and no brothers In 1950 she made her first recording, "Crying My Heart Out Over You", with the Claude Hopkins Orchestra for Big Nickel Records, a small R&B label. By 1952, the company had folded and she recorded the first of six singles for Derby Records in New York City. Her first recording for the label was "I May Hate Myself In The Morning", written by Bennie Benjamin and George Weiss, and recorded with the Rex Kearney Orchestra. a remarkable achievement at the time for an "R&B-tinged" record on an independent label. Early in 1954 she appeared with Dizzy Gillespie, Dusty Fletcher and George Kirby in Philadelphia, and toured with vocal group the Dew Droppers. She left Coral, and Derby issued some unreleased tracks by her on their subsidiary Central label, but she did not record again until later in the year when she joined the Jubilee label, who marketed her as a pop rather than R&B performer. However, her recordings were unsuccessful and she recorded for her manager Phil Rose's Glory label, backed by vocal group the Four Fellows, featuring Larry Banks.

Although changing musical tastes meant that she was increasingly relegated to occasional performances, she recorded "What A Night For Love" for Atco in 1957, She attempted a comeback in 1964 with "You're the Greatest", a tribute to boxer Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) on the Almont label and "As Long As You're Mine" on the Pulse label in 1965.

MacLaurin's later life seems to be unreported. According to music historian Marv Goldberg, McLaurin moved to Jamaica, Queens during her youth; public records show that she still lived there as late as 2001, but no subsequent documentation appears to exist. A compilation of some of her recordings, The Masquerade Is Over, was released as an LP in 1989 and on CD in 2013.