Judy Henske
American singer-songwriter
Judith Anne Henske (December 20, 1936 – April 27, 2022) was an American singer and songwriter, dubbed "the Queen of the Beatniks" by producer Jack Nitzsche. Initially performing in folk clubs in the early 1960s, her performances and recordings embraced blues, jazz, show tunes, and humorous material. Her 1963 recording of "High Flying Bird" was influential on folk-rock, and her 1969 album Farewell Aldebaran, with her then husband Jerry Yester, was an eclectic "fusion of folk music, psychedelia, and arty pop".
Life and career
Henske was born in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. She attended Notre Dame Grade School and Notre Dame-McDonell Memorial High School, and then Rosary College, River Forest, Illinois, before studying at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She then worked in Ohio, before moving to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she worked as a cook in a Quaker co-operative.
Around 1959, she relocated to San Diego, California, where she lived on a sloop in the yacht basin. Over 6 feet tall, with a "booming voice", her style was influenced by Sophie Tucker, Peggy Lee, and Odetta. A guest shot on ABC-TV's Hootenanny gave her young career a boost, after which she began singing in coffee houses in Pacific Beach, San Diego, and Los Angeles, where she worked with, among others, Lenny Bruce. She then moved on to Oklahoma City, before joining ex-Kingston Trio member Dave Guard and the Whiskeyhill Singers in 1961 in Menlo Park, California, recording an album.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1711156. VIAF identifies the subject as 263429543. The Library of Congress control number is n93091119. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1936, 2022, 1963 and 1969.
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This entry incorporates text from “Judy Henske” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.