Dinah Washington

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Dinah Washington
Background information
Birth name	Ruth Lee Jones
Also known as	Queen of the Blues
Born	August 29, 1924 Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA
Origin	Chicago, Illinois, USA
Died	December 14, 1963 (age 39)
Genre(s)	Blues, R&B, Jazz
Occupation(s)	Singer
Years active	1943 – 1963
Label(s)	Keynote, Mercury, EmArcy, Roulette

Dinah Washington (August 29, 1924 – December 14, 1963) was a blues, R&B and jazz singer. Because of her strong voice and emotional singing, she is known as the "Queen of the Blues". Despite dying of a drug overdose in 1963, Dinah Washington became one of the most influential vocalists of the twentieth century.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Rise to Fame 3 Queen of the Blues 4 Trivia 5 Discography 5.1 Hit Singles 6 Samples 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Early life

Washington was born Ruth Lee Jones in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Her family moved to Chicago while she was still a child. As a child in Chicago she played piano and directed her church choir. She later studied in Walter Dyett's renowned music program at DuSable High School. There was a period when she both performed in clubs as Dinah Washington while singing and playing piano in Sallie Martin's gospel choir as Ruth Jones.

Her penetrating voice, excellent timing, and crystal-clear enunciation added her own distinctive style to every piece she undertook. While making extraordinary recordings in jazz, blues, R&B and light pop contexts, Washington refused to record gospel music despite her obvious talent in singing it. She believed it wrong to mix the secular and spiritual, and after she had entered the non-religious professional music world she refused to include gospel in her repertoire. Washington began performing in 1942 and soon joined Lionel Hampton's band. There is some dispute about the origin of her name. Some sources say the manager of the Garrick Stage Bar gave her the name Dinah Washington, while others say Hampton selected it.

[edit] Rise to Fame

In 1943 she began recording for Keynote Records and released "Evil Gal Blues", her first hit. By 1955 she had released numerous hit songs on the R&B charts, including "Baby, Get Lost", "Trouble in Mind", "You Don't Know What Love Is" (arranged by Quincy Jones), and a cover of "Cold, Cold Heart" by Hank Williams. In March of 1957 she married tenor saxophonist Eddie Chamblee, (formerly on tour with Lionel Hampton) who led the band behind her. In 1958 she made a well-received appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival.

With "What a Diff'rence a Day Makes" 1959, Washington won a Grammy Award for Best Rhythm and Blues Performance. The song was her biggest hit, reaching #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. The commercially driven album of the same name, with its heavy reliance on strings and wordless choruses, was slammed by jazz and blues critics as being far too commercial and not in keeping with her blues roots. Despite this, the album was a huge success and Washington continued to favor more commercial, pop-oriented songs rather than traditional blues and jazz songs. Along with a string of other hits, she followed this with "September In The Rain", which reached number 35 in the UK in November 1961 and #23 in the US. In 1960, she also had two top 10 hit duets with Brook Benton: "Baby (You've Got What It Takes)" and "A Rockin' Good Way (To Mess Around and Fall In Love)". She also dealt in torch songs; her rendition of the popular standard "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" was well regarded.

[edit] Queen of the Blues

What set Dinah Washington apart from her contemporaries was her extraordinary diction and phrasing. To this day, there hasn't been an equal, although many have tried to recreate the Dinah Washington experience. Her voice can still invoke a chill in many a modern listener.^{[citation needed]}

She was married seven times, and divorced six times while having several lovers, including Quincy Jones, her young arranger. She was brilliant; highly intelligent, deeply spiritual, refined, and infinitely tasteful in her style. She was a liberated woman before such a term existed to define her. (Legend has it that she wore mink in all weather and carried two .45 pistols with her.) Although she had a reputation as imperious and demanding, she was loving, funny, generous and forgiving. Audiences sensed this remarkable combination of qualities and loved her. In London she once declared, "...there is only one heaven, one earth and one queen...Queen Elizabeth is an impostor", but the crowd loved it.

About six months after her marriage to football player Dick "Night Train" Lane, she died from an accidental overdose of prescription sleeping medication ingested on an empty stomach. Dinah, who was just 5'2" tall and had fought a weight problem all of her life, was dieting to lose weight before a New Year's Eve party she was giving with her friend Bea Buck.

[edit] Trivia

In 2006 Doubletree Hotels began using her "Relax Max" song in one of their television commercials. The song is from her 1957 album, Swingin' Miss 'D'.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Hit Singles

Year	Single	US R&B Singles	US Pop Singles	Album
1955	"I Concentrate On You"	#11	-	The Complete Dinah Washington
1955	"If It's the Last Thing I Do"	#13	-	In Love
1955	"That's All I Want From You"	#8	-	50 Greatest Hits
1955	"You Might Have Told Me"	#14	-	50 Greatest Hits
1956	"I'm Lost Without You Tonight"	#13	-	50 Greatest Hits
1956	"Soft Winds"	#13	-	50 Greatest Hits
1958	"Make Me a Present of You"	#27	-	Dinah!
1959	"Unforgettable"	#15	#17	The Complete Dinah Washingoton
1959	"What a Diff'rence a Day Makes"	#4	#8	What a Diff'rence a Day Makes
1960	"Baby (You've Got What It Takes)"	#1	#5	Two of Us
1960	"Love Walked In"	#16	#30	Two of Us
1960	"This Bitter Earth"	#1	#24	Golden Hits
1960	"A Rockin' Good Way (To Mess Around and Fall In Love)"	#1	#7	Two of Us
1961	"September In the Rain"	#5	#23	Greatest Hits Vol. 1
1962	"Cold, Cold Heart"	-	#96	The Ultimate Dinah Washington
1962	"Where Are You?"	-	#36	Dinah '62
1962	"You're a Sweetheart"	-	#98	In Love
1962	"You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You"	-	#87'	Dinah '62

[edit] Samples

• Download sample of "Mixed Emotions"

[edit] See also

Dinah Washington Park

[edit] References

• Queen of the Blues: A Biography of Dinah Washington, Jim Haskins, 1987, William Morrow & Co. ISBN 0-688-04846-3

[edit] External links

• Dinah Washington profile (Verve Records website)
• Dinah Washington's Gravesite