Bonnie Davis, born Gertrude Melba Smith (June 10, 1920 – August 1976),[1] was an American R&B singer most popular in the 1940s.
Melba Smith was born in New Orleans, but her family relocated to Bessemer, Alabama, when she was a child.
However, in the late 1930s she started working as a singer in New York, initially in saxophonist Teddy Hill's band.
They began releasing singles again in 1950, and over the next four years recorded for the Keystone, Columbia, Coral and Melmar labels.
With Davis and Moorman as the core members, there were various personnel changes in the group: Ransome was replaced by Walter "Pinky" Smith, and Padgette by, firstly, Ed "Skeets" McKaine, and then James "Doc" Starkes, who was in turn succeeded by Brother Moncur.