Jazz and Blues singer Mildred Bailey was Native American. Her mother Josephine was a member of the Coeur d'Alene people. Her great-grandfather, Bazil Peone, was a head speaker and song leader of the Coeur d'Alene at the turn of the 20th century. His ability to create indigenized Catholic hymns helped guide the tribe during difficult times of active colonization by Jesuit missionaries. Mildred's father played fiddle and called square dances. Her mother played piano every evening and taught Mildred to play and sing. Mildred's younger brothers included Miles, Al and Charles.

The family moved to Spokane, Washington when Mildred was thirteen. At seventeen, Mildred moved to Seattle and worked as a sheet music demonstrator at  Woolworth's. She toured with a West Coast revue, worked at a radio station and a speakeasy in Bakersfield. By this time she had married twice. Once to Ted Bailey, whose name she kept, and then to Benny Stafford who helped her to become an established blues and jazz singer on the west coast of the United States. Mildred's original family name was Rinker. Wikipedia gives Mildred's birth date as February 1907 and Al Rinker's as December 1907 - the two were clearly close in age.

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Listen to Mildred singing Rockin' Chair in 1937 here.

Harry Lillis 'Bing' Crosby was born in 1903, four years earlier than Al and in 1907, Bing's family also moved to Spokane. In 1923, Bing joined a new band composed of high-school students a few years younger than himself and led by Al Rinker. The band broke up after two years and Bing and Al obtained work at the Clemmer Theatre in Spokane, often with three other musicians and with Al accompanying on piano from the pit.

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In October 1925, Bing and Al decided to seek fame in California. They travelled to Los Angeles, where Mildred  introduced them to her show business contacts. After various engagements, Bing and Al were spotted by someone from Paul Whiteman's organisation. "Hired for $150 a week in 1926, they debuted with Whiteman on December 6 at the Tivoli Theatre in Chicago. Their first recording, in October 1926, was "I've Got the Girl" with Don Clark's Orchestra, but the Columbia-issued record was inadvertently recorded at a slow speed, which increased the singers' pitch when played at 78 rpm. Whiteman considered letting them go. However, the addition of a pianist and aspiring songwriter, Harry Barris made the difference, and (Paul Whiteman's) Rhythm Boys were born. The additional voice also meant they could be heard more easily in large New York theaters."

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Here is a clip of the Rhythm Boys from the 1930 movie The King Of Jazz.

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Bing returned Mildred's earlier support by introducing her to Paul Whitemen and Mildred sang with Whiteman's band from 1929 to 1933 when she left as a result of salary disagreements. Bing's own dissatisfaction with Whiteman led to the Rhythm Boys leaving and joining Gus Arnheim's Orchestra. But Bing's popularity eventually encouraged him to go solo and so The Rhythm Boys disbanded. Al Rinker went on to write songs including You Can't Do Wrong Doin' Right and Everybody Wants to Be a Cat  for Disney's animated children's movie The Aristocrats). Al died in1982 at the age of 74.

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Mildred went on singing and recording with various famous jazz bands and musicians including Benny Goodman, the Dorsey Brothers and Red Norvo (who she married), but she suffered from diabetes, was hospitalized in 1938, 1943, and 1949, and retired for a time in 1949 on a farm she owned in Poughkeepsie, New York. "Often in financial difficulties, she was bailed out several times by Bing Crosby". She died of heart failure in hospital in1951 at the age of 44.