Sheila Tracy

Sheila Tracy, born Sheila Lugg in Helston, Cornwall, England, is a British musician best known for her trombone playing, broadcaster and journalist. She studied piano, violin and trombone at the Royal Academy of Music, then joined the Ivy Benson All Girls Band between 1956 and 1958. She then formed a vocal/trombone duo, The Tracy Sisters, who appeared in variety, on radio and television, as well as in cabaret all over the world. When the act broke up, she joined BBC Television as an announcer and worked mostly in television until the mid 1970s when she became the first woman newsreader on BBC Radio 4.

On BBC Radio 2 she devised and presented the Truckers Hour and introduced Big Band Special. She was also a regular contributor to Radio 4's "Breakaway". She was also a regular presenter on Saga Radio, presenting a big band show called Swing Time with Sheila Tracy which was syndicated across the Saga network.

Among her books are "Bands, Booze & Broads" (1995), a collection of her interviews with the American sidemen who played with top bands in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, and "Talking Swing" (1997), on British musicians of the same era.

In 1997 she was made a Freeman of the City of London and an A.R.A.M. She is a former President of the British Trombone Society.

References

* [http://www.ivybenson-online.com/Biographies/Sheila_Tracy.htm Ivy Benson Big Band website]