Ernestina was the credit used by Ernestine Hassel Abbott for both her songwriting and performing activities in the '50s. Perhaps wise to drop the full name, which sounds like a brief description of a conflict inside a monastery, Ernestina was nonetheless a minor league rhythm and blues entity, briefly tied to the better-known vocalist Dean Barlow of the Crickets for an efficiently organized recording session in which they traded off lead vocal activities.

A resident of Harlem, Ernestina's few recorded documents benefit greatly from the presence of brilliant sidemen, such as alto saxophonist Al Sears and guitarist Mickey Baker. She may have been more talented as a writer -- although upon examining what is known about her career, one major aspect seems to be irony. She wrote and recorded the ballad Don't You Ever Let Me Go, treated to a superb bass line by none other than the great Milt Hinton, but then turned around and begged her producer to do just that, let her go from the contract she had signed the month before. It is just too bad she didn't send this request Special Delivery, the title of the record's flip side; that would have been double the irony. "Personal reasons" were her explanation for dropping out of performing -- not a bad song title either. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi