Sarah Vaughan celebrity print 1973

Summary

This concrete handprint was formerly located as a part of the iconic McEwans celebrity pavement. Between 1972 and 1994, scores of celebrities had their handprints and footprints immortalised in cement at the entrance to the McEwans hardware store on Bourke Street. The City of Melbourne Art and Heritage Collection acquired a number of these impressed concrete slabs from the original celebrity pavement in 2005.

"Sarah Vaughan (1924-1990) was an American jazz singer. She was one of the first to record the jazz-standard ‘Tenderly’, making it a hit in 1947. Her peak decade as a performer was the 1950s. In 1954 she appeared at the first Newport Jazz Festival and at Carnegie Hall on the same bill as the Count Basie Orchestra, Billie Holliday and Charlie Parker. Vaughan was in Melbourne in August 1973 as part of a world tour. Her performance in Tokyo, a month after Melbourne, was recorded and released as ‘Sarah Vaughan Live in Japan’, its 18 tracks mainly jazz standards and ballads." - Robyn Annear, 2023