Milton's Bar and Julia Lee

Milton Morris opened a jazz club at this location in 1934. Blues and Jazz singer Julia Lee was called by the local media the “Princess of the Boogie Woogie” and was known for her husky, throaty voice. She played piano and sang in her brother George E. Lee's Orchestra from 1920 to 1934. Lee was known for her straightforward piano style, and the easy, heartfelt way of singing. In a professional career that spanned four decades, Lee built a national reputation as one of the great female blues singers of all time. 

Born in Boonville, Missouri, Lee was raised in Kansas City, where she met Frank Duncan at Lincoln High School. On September 17, 1919, Julia (16) and Frank (18) were married. Her husband, a native of Kansas City, was a catcher and manager of the Kansas City Monarchs. Duncan was Jackie Robinson's manager in 1945, Robinson's only year in the Negro Leagues.

Lee began her musical career soon after, singing and playing piano in her brother George Lee's band, which featured saxophonist Charlie Parker at times. She first recorded on the Merritt record label in 1927 with Jesse Stone as pianist and arranger and launched a solo career in 1935.

 She was certainly popular in her career, largely for her "dirty blues" on songs like her mildly suggestive original "Come On Over to My House" with Jay McShann's ‘Kansas City Stompers’, with the more obvious "Don't Come Too Soon," "My Man Stands Out," "All This Beef and Ripe Tomatoes," "King Size Papa," "Snatch and Grab It," and "My Sin.”

 As these titles suggest, she became best known for her trademark double entendre songs, or, as she once said, "the songs my mother taught me not to sing". The records were credited to 'Julia Lee and Her Boy Friends' and her session musicians included Jay McShann, Vic Dickenson, Benny Carter, Red Norvo, Nappy Lamare, Red Nichols and Jack Marshall.

In 1941, Lee was banned from playing at a popular Kansas City club by liquor control agents due to "the type of song she sang and the way she sang it" — but her fans protested and eventually the ban was lifted.

Julia Lee’s first big hit, “Snatch and Grab It,” was recorded 75 years ago back in 1947. It was deemed “too risqué” to be played on the radio — but thanks to jukebox play, it sold more than 500,000 copies and was the number one US Billboard R&B hit for 12 weeks.

“It’s not what we think of today. Like, leave nothing to the imagination. It was double entendre," says Chuck Haddix, co-author of Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop.

Lee was known for her husky, throaty voice and called by the local media the "Princess of the Boogie Woogie." In 1949, at the invitation of President Harry S Truman, the Princess, along with drummer Baby Lovett, played at the White House, where she performed her ironic “King Size Papa.”

Although her recorded hits dried up after 1949, she continued as one of the most popular performers in Kansas City until her death in Kansas City, at the age of 56, from a heart attack. Their son, Frank Duncan, Jr., of Detroit, Michigan, was the only survivor.

Today she is honored with a 1400 square feet banquet room on the third floor, named in her honor at the Kansas City Marriott Downtown, at 200 West 12th Street.

Haddix, Chuck. Driggs, Frank. Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop - A History. Oxford, United Kingdom. Oxford University Press, 2006.

Lester, Larry. Miller, Sammy J.. Black Baseball in Kansas City. Edition first. Chicago, IL. Arcadia Publishing, 2000.