Trumpet player George Hudson was born in Stonewall, Mississippi in 1910, and grew up in Birmingham, Alabama and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He played with various bands around the country, including famed jazz band leader Benny Moten in Kansas City, before coming to St. Louis in 1934 to play lead trumpet with the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra at Club Plantation. He joined Dewey Jackson and his orchestra in 1938, and he debuted with his own orchestra at the Pine Street Y Circus in 1942. The original George Hudson Orchestra included Singleton Palmer on tuba. Hudson and his orchestra became popular in the early half of the 1940s, playing at small venues like Tunetown and the Comet Theater on Finney with the Mills Brothers. They later played Club Riviera and at the 1944 American Negro Music Festival at Sportsman's Park. Also in 1944, the George Hudson Orchestra replaced longtime Club Plantation house band, the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra. They began touring nationally, playing in cities such as Chicago and New York. After World War II, instrumentalists in his band included Clark Terry, Cy Stoner, Robert Horne, Charles Pillars, Robert Parker, Singleton Palmer. In 1950, Hudson began teaching music at Lovejoy High School in Brooklyln, Illinois. During his career at Lovejoy, he taught several future jazz greats, including Hamiett Blueitt. Hudson died in 2019 in New York City.