Another more intense spurt of releases came in the middle of that decade for Vocalion and Decca. Her 1935 version of I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter was shelved at the time because it was felt to be too much an imitation of Fats Waller. One of her specialty numbers during this time was Something's Wrong, with lyrics sure to offend gay activists: "If there's too much tenor in his talk, something's wrong." In 1939 she recorded for Bluebird as a vocalist with the Hines band, where her services at the keyboard were surely not needed. This is where her versatility becomes somewhat official, as record guides which label her as a blues singer on the earlier sides now refer to her as a jazz singer. Whatever it was, she worked regularly in clubs on the Chicago scene and was known for her willingness to play and sing requests from popular songs of the day as well as her regal appearance. Her mainstay status on the Chicago club scene continued through the '40s. Vocalist supreme Peggy Lee has recalled hearing Rucker sing with drummer Baby Dodds and has credited Rucker with the source of her famous interpretation of Cole Porter's Let's Do It from Rucker. In 1949, the singer provided the legendary Chicago pianist Claude McLin with his recording debut, a collaboration that made about as big a ripple as a pebble tossed into Lake Superior. This session of ballads and blues numbers was done for Aristocrat, which eventually became the recording dynasty of the Chess brothers. As a result, the tracks of Rucker with the Claude McLin Combo have been released on various anthologies of this label. Rucker obviously did not let her fingers atrophy whilst working behind piano man Hines, and is credited with the swinging and fluent piano on these late-'40s sessions. There is indeed versatility in this artist, but perhaps not to the extent suggested by the association with both Blake and Hines. A better understanding of the relationship with the former man is immediate on the Austrian Wolf collection, entitled Blind Blake: The Accompanist. It was Blake that was able to adopt his style to the singer on what were the great blind blues guitarist's final recording sessions in 1931, not the other way around. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi