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Anna Mae Winburn was born Anna Mae Darden on August 13, 1913 to a musical family in Port Royal, Tennessee and along with her three sisters migrated to Kokomo, Indiana, at a young age. Her first known publicized performance was singing with the studio band of Radio WOWO, Fort Wayne, Indiana. She worked at various clubs in Indiana, at times appearing under the pseudonym Anita Door.

From there she moved to North Omaha, Nebraska where she sang and played guitar for a variety of territory bands, or groups whose touring activities and popularity were geographically limited to several adjoining states, that were led by Red Perkins. During that time Winburn was a collaborator of Lloyd Hunter, frequently singing with Lloyd Hunter’s “Serenaders”. She also led the Cotton Club Boys out of Omaha, a group that at one point included the amazing guitarist Charlie Christian.

When many of the musicians were lost to the World War II draft she left for  Oklahoma City and led bands for a short while. It was there that she led Eddie Durham’s “All-Girl Orchestra”, which eventually earned her an invite to join the International Sweethearts of Rhythm. Durham had been the composer for the International Sweethearts of Rhythm for two years before leaving to join Count Basie’s band.] After being recommended by Jimmie Jewel, who owned North Omaha’s Dreamland Ballroom, Anna Mae became the leader of the band in 1941. She was reportedly hired for her attractive figure, with the intention of doing little actual composing or singing but was the leader of the band until it folded in late 1949.

Vocalist and bandleader Anna Mae Winburn,  who flourished beginning in the mid-1930s and led the all-female big band International Sweethearts of Rhythm, that was perhaps one of the few and one of the most racially integrated dance-bands of the swing era, passed away in Hempstead, New York on September 30, 1999.

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