Ketty Lester (born Revoyda Frierson; August 16, 1934) is an American singer and actress known for her 1961 hit single "Love Letters", which reached the top 5 of the charts in the U.S. and the UK. She is also known for her role as Hester-Sue Terhune on the American television series Little House on the Prairie. In 2022, she was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame.
Life and career
Ketty Lester was born Revoyda Frierson on August 16, 1934, in
Hope, Arkansas. Her parents were farmers who would eventually have a total of 15
children. As a young child, Lester first sang in her church and later in
school choirs. She won a scholarship to study music at San Francisco State
College, and in the early 1950s, she began performing under the name "Ketty Lester" in the city's
Purple Onion club. She later toured Europe and South America as a singer with
Cab Calloway's orchestra.
Lester (as Revoyda Frierson) appeared as a contestant on the
December 26, 1957, episode of You Bet Your Life, hosted by Groucho Marx. Lester
sang "You Do Something to Me". The
chosen category was "Mother
Goose", a subject she admitted knowing nothing about; George Fenneman
fed the correct answers to her, and she and her partner won $1,000.
Returning to California, she recorded her first single, "Queen for a Day", for the
Everest label. She was introduced by Dorothy Shay to record producers and
songwriters Ed Cobb and Lincoln Mayorga of The Four Preps and The Piltdown Men,
who won her a contract with Era Records in Los Angeles. In 1961 they released
her single "Love Letters" b/w
"I'm a Fool to Want You".
Lester's recording of "Love
Letters", which featured Lincoln Mayorga's sparse piano arrangement
and Earl Palmer on drums, rose to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 early in 1962.
The record also reached No. 2 on the R&B chart and No. 4 on the UK Singles
Chart, selling over 1 million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA.
In 1991, it was ranked 176th in the RIAA-compiled list of Songs of the Century.
In 1962, she toured the UK as a support act on the Everly
Brothers tour. The follow-up, a version of George and Ira Gershwin's "But Not for Me" from the
musical Girl Crazy, reached No. 41 in the U.S. pop charts and No. 45 in the UK.
She released an album, Love Letters, which contained the tracks "You Can't Lie to a Liar" and
a cover of Woody Guthrie's "This
Land Is Your Land" (both of which were issued as singles) and was
nominated for a Grammy in the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance category.
Lester continued to record for Era with little success until
1964, when she signed with RCA. She released several unsuccessful singles for
that label, and two albums, The Soul of Me and Where Is Love?, in a more
R&B-oriented style that has been compared to Dinah Washington and Nancy
Wilson. Some of her earlier recordings also featured on one side of an album
shared with previously released tracks by Betty Everett. Also in 1964, she won
a Theatre World Award for her performance in the off-Broadway show Cabin in the
Sky. She moved to the Tower label, issuing a single and album, When a Woman
Loves a Man, an answer record to Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman". However, these releases, and
later records for the Pete label, including a 1968 album titled Ketty Lester,
met with little commercial success.
By the early 1970s, Lester gave up singing commercially and
turned to acting. She was reportedly offered the role eventually taken by
Diahann Carroll in the 1968–71 TV series Julia, and appeared in a variety of
movies, including Uptight (1968), Blacula (1972), Uptown Saturday Night (1974)
and The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975).
Lester established herself as a television actress in the
1970s and 1980s, playing the roles of Helen Grant on Days of Our Lives
(1975–77) and as Hester-Sue Terhune on Little House on the Prairie (1977–83),
and she appeared on other television shows and movies, including The Night the
City Screamed (1980).
Lester recorded an album of gospel music titled I Saw Him in
1984, and returned to films, appearing in Street Knight (1993) and as Aunt Lucy
in House Party 3 (1994).
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In 2020, she released her memoir, Ketty Lester: From
Arkansas To Grammy Nominated Love Letters to Little House on the Prairie.
Lester attended the 50th Anniversary Reunion for Little House on the Prairie in
2024, meeting fans and also delivering a sermon on stage.
Discography
Albums
Love Letters – 1962
Betty Everett & Ketty Lester – 1964 (one side each)
The Soul of Me – 1964
Where Is Love? – 1965
When a Woman Loves a Man – 1966
Ketty Lester – 1969
Ketty Lester in Concert – 1977
A Collection of Her Best – 1982
I Saw Love – 1984
Singles
1962 "Queen for a Day"
b/w "I Said
Goodbye to My Love" — — — Non-album tracks
"Love
Letters"
b/w "I'm a Fool
to Want You" 2 5 4 Love Letters
"But Not for
Me"
b/w "Once Upon a Time" (from Love Letters) — 41 45 Non-album
tracks
"You Can't Lie to
a Liar"
b/w "River of
Salt" — 90 —
"This Land Is
Your Land"
b/w "Love Is for
Everyone" — 97 —
1963 "Fallen Angel"
b/w "Lullaby for
Lovers" (Non-album track) — — — Love Letters
1964 "Some Things Are Better Left
Unsaid"
b/w "The House Is
Haunted (by the Echo of Your Last Goodbye)" — 127 — Non-album
tracks
"Roses Grow with
Thorns"
b/w "Please Don't
Cry Anymore" — — —
"I Trust You
Baby"
b/w "Theme from
'The Luck of Ginger Coffey'" — — —
"You Go Your Way
(and I'll Go Crazy)"
b/w "Variations
on a Theme by Bird" — — —
1965 "Pretty Lies, Pretty Make Believe"
b/w "(Looking for
a) Better World" — — —
"I'll Be Looking
Back"
b/w "West
Coast" — — —
1966 "Secret Love"
b/w "Love Me Just
a Little Bit" — — —
"When a Woman
Loves a Man"
b/w "We'll Be
Together Again" — — — When a Woman Loves a Man
1968 "I Will Lead You"
b/w "Now That I
Need Him" — — — Non-album tracks
1969 "Cracker Box Livin'"
b/w "The Measure
of a Man" — — —
"Show Me"
b/w "Since I Fell
for You" — — — Ketty Lester
1984 "Jesus Laid His Hands on Me"
"One Day at a
Time" — — — I Saw Love
"Have You
Heard?"
b/w "She'd Never
Heard of Anyone Called Jesus"
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