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Aileen Stanley, born Maude Elsie Aileen Muggeridge (March 21, 1893 – March 24, 1982), was one of the most popular United States singing of the early 1920s.
Stanley performed in vaudeville and . In 1920 she was a hit in New York City in the revue show Silks And Satins and made the first of her numerous recordings the same year. The majority of her records in the '20s were for the Victor Talking Machine Company, but she also recorded with other record label with in the New York City area, including Edison Records, Pathe Records, Okeh Records, Brunswick, Vocalion Records, Gennett Records and others. On some of her early recordings she was accompanied by Rosario Bourdon's Orchestra. Many of her records sold well at the time. According to Joel Whitman, her most successful early recordings included "My Mammy" (1921), "Sweet Indiana Home" (1922), both written by Walter Donaldson; she also recorded other Walter Donaldson songs including "My Little Bimbo Down on a Bamboo Isle" (1920), "Dixie Highway" (1922), "Carolina in the Morning" (1922), "Back Where The Daffodils Grow" (1924), and "Don't be angry with me" (1926).
Between 1922 and 1924, and again in the late '20s, Victor Records produced a popular series of records pairing Stanley with singer Billy Murray. One of Stanley's 1925 Victor recordings, "When My Sugar Walks Down the Street", in which she shared the vocal with newcomer Gene Austin, helped launch Austin's illustrious career.Shilkret, Nathaniel, ed. Niel Shell and Barbara Shilkret, Nathaniel Shilkret: Sixty Years in the Music Business, Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland, 2005, pp. 73--74. She recorded J. Russel Robinson and Con Conrad's 1920 jazz standard "Singin' the Blues", released as Victor 18703. She recorded the Paul Whiteman and Fred Rose composition "Flamin' Mamie" on October 5, 1925, and released it as Victor 19828-A accompanied on ukulele by Billy "Uke" Carpenter who provided "Eefing".
Stanley also recorded for Black Swan Records, a label purportedly devoted only to African-American artists, under the pseudonyms Mamie Jones and Georgia Gorham. Her handling of blues material was similar to that of some of the northern black vaudeville singers of the time. Her stage appearances billed her as "The Phonograph Girl" and "The Girl With The Personality." In later life she was overheard to say that the song "I'll Get By" was written for her.
She died in 1982 in Los Angeles, California, aged 89, and was buried (under the name Aileen Stanley Muggeridge) at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale.
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