Geneva Taylor Rawlins: Celebrated Jazz Musician and Choir Director from Austin (1930–2020)

Geneva Marie Taylor Rawlins, jazz musician, bandleader, and choir director, was born on January 9, 1930, to William Everett Taylor, Sr., and Juanita Marie (Williams) Taylor in Guthrie, Oklahoma. She was raised in Wichita, Kansas, and from an early age had a calling for music. Her mother was a church pianist, and her father and an uncle performed rhythm-and-blues locally. She graduated from Planeview High School in Wichita and attended Friends University and Wichita State University (both in Wichita, Kansas) to study classical music. She later completed her undergraduate studies in 1979 with a bachelor’s degree in communications with an emphasis in deaf education from the University of Texas at Austin.

Geneva Taylor married Fred Butler, who was in the United States Air Force, in 1952; they had one child, Marie. On July 26, 1958, she married Lionel Rawlins (also a member of the U.S. Air Force) and they had son Brian. A local census in 1959 showed the family still living in Wichita, Kansas, but the family was soon stationed at Torrejón Air Base in Madrid, Spain. There she saw the need to establish a gospel choir for the chapel worship services. Because military wives at that time could not work on the base, she volunteered to play for free. The family moved to her husband’s next military assignment, Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin, Texas, in 1963.

From 1965 to 1979 Geneva Rawlins performed in Austin as bandleader, pianist, and vocalist for the popular music group Geneva and Her Gentlemen. Her voice was compared to that of jazz vocalists Cleo Laine and Sarah Vaughn. They played their first show at The Jade Room on February 14, 1965. The group featured Rawlins on piano, vibes, and vocals; Fred Smith on tenor saxophone; T. J. Cleaver on bass; Jimmy Hamilton on drums; Jim Langdon on trombone; and husband Lionel Rawlins on bass and acting as conductor and master of ceremonies. Her combo was a frequent pop jazz act at many Austin nightclubs, and in the early to mid-1970s the group was the house band at Club Seville in Austin. In 1969 Sonobeat Records recorded Geneva and Her Gentlemen, but nothing was ever released. Some of the Gentlemen went on to form the jazz fusion group Passenger in the early 1980s and were popular in the Austin music scene.

After Geneva and Her Gentlemen went their separate ways at the end of the 1970s, she continued to perform as a solo act in Central Texas in the 1980s and 1990s. She also donated her time to local arts and church causes, such as Austin’s Women & Their Work, an organization dedicated to promoting women in the visual and performing arts; Gospel Music Workshop of America; and other community church events in East Austin and the Greater Austin area.

Rawlins served as the director of music for Wesley United Methodist Church in Central East Austin from 1977 to 2007. She had begun her work at Wesley by playing the organ for the children’s choir in the 1960s. As choir director, she ensured that the church carried on its tradition of anthems, spirituals, hymns, gospel, and many other genres of music. She also charted music for the Intergenerational Choir to ensure that four-part harmony was delivered for every worship service. In this capacity Rawlins mentored generations of up-and-coming musicians in the sacred and secular community.

During her career while working with her band, she accompanied and performed with a number of Austin’s great jazz and popular musicians at events and private parties, including Cactus Pryor, James Polk, Pamela Hart, Tim Curry, and Beulah A. Curry-Jones. Rawlins was one of the African American women who pioneered popular and jazz music in Austin along with Ernie Mae (Crafton) Miller, Margaret (Pearson) Wright, Elizabeth (Pearson) Harris, Yvetta (Young) Turner, and Damita Jo DeBlanc, who gained national fame. Rawlins’s honors include recognition from the Black Arts Alliance (1988, now defunct) for her contributions to the arts in jazz and pop music; a Malindy Vocal Award (2020, posthumously) for her contributions as vocalist, pianist, music director and instructor; and induction into the Austin Jazz Society Hall of Fame (2023, posthumously).

In addition to her roles as wife, mother, and professional musician, Rawlins had day jobs.  Her jobs included working as an administrative assistant for the National Negro Business League–Austin Chapter, administrative assistant for attorney Lydia Gardner, and purchaser at the Texas Department of Agriculture from which she retired.

Geneva Taylor Rawlins passed away in Austin on June 10, 2020. Her daughter Marie and former husband, Lionel Rawlins (they had divorced in 1989) predeceased her. She was survived by her son Brian Rawlins of Austin; brother William “Bill” Taylor, Jr., of Wichita, Kansas; and other loved ones. Her funeral service was held at Wesley United Methodist Church in Austin on June 18, 2020.