In the late 1940s, Hadda Brooks made a name for herself via the Modern record label in Los Angeles, founded by the Bihari brothers to create content for the jukeboxes they had installed in bars and cafés right across the greater metropolitan area of LA.

Ms Brooks was a fine pianist, and she was capable of far more than the endless boogie woogie tracks she made for Modern (sometimes in very poor recording quality).

There’s a hint of her keyboard versatility here in her boogiefied versions of the main theme from Grieg’s piano concerto and Dvorák’s ‘Humoresque’.

But her great asset to the world of jukeboxes was not just creating uptempo danceable pieces, but her soulful singing voice, which on an early example like ‘You Won’t Let Me Go’ sounds very like her slightly older contemporary Una Mae Carlisle. When veteran jazz and blues guitarist Teddy Bunn joined her trio line-up in 1947 she had a perfect solo counterpart for her voice, on tracks such as ‘Romance in the Dark’. Later records were made for the London and OKeh labels, in slightly more consistent quality than the Modern tracks, but throughout this period of her career, despite the technical limitations of the discs, her own performances always shone brightly. As well as the 50 tracks on the set that document this lesser-known singer, Paul Watts should be commended on his liner notes, which draw together most of what is known about her long and fascinating life.