Dinah Washington
 Born Ruth Lee Jones in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Dinah Washington grew up in
Chicago, where she sang and played piano in church. After she joined the
big-band of Lionel Hampton in 1943, her bruising, insouciant delivery
drew immediate attention.
She signed with Mercury Records in 1947, beginning a 15-year
association marked by Washington's ease with a panoply of musical
styles. A yearly series of hits established her as the top female
rhythm and blues artist during the first half of the 50s.
Washington was actually the most versatile and influential singer of
the 1950s. She was as comfortable with swinging jazz as she was with
pop, show tunes or down and dirty rhythm and blues.
Hits such as I Won't Cry Anymore, Trouble In Mind,
I Don't Hurt Anymore and Teach Me Tonight influenced a
new generation of divas, including Etta James and
Aretha Franklin.
Dinah had to wait until 1959 to score a pop-chart crossover hit, with
What A Diff'rence A Day Makes.
More pop hits followed over the next three years: Unforgettable,
September In The Rain, This Bitter Earth and her
successful duets with Brook Benton, Baby
(You've Got What It Takes)
and A Rockin' Good Way (To Mess Around and Fall In Love).
She may have been called 'The Queen of the Blues', but Dinah
Washington's immense talent can not be pigeon-holed. Her nickname
was true in that everything she touched shared the emotion and sincerity
of the blues.
Dinah Washington died in 1963 after accidentally combining alcohol
and sleeping pills.
She was posthumously inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame
in 1993..
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