Background

Dinah Washington was born Ruth Jones in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Her birth was not recorded, and different sources give August 8, 22, or 29 as her birthday. Little is known about her father, Ollie Jones. Alice, her mother, was a musician who taught Washington singing and piano.

Education

Having moved to Chicago as a child, Washington began playing piano in a South Side Baptist church while attending public school.

Career

With her mother as her partner, she later toured the country, singing gospel music in black churches. At the age of fifteen, she won an amateur contest at Chicago's Regal Theater and performed for a time at several nightclubs. Returning to sacred music in 1940, she became the protégée of Sallie Martin, cofounder of the Gospel Singers Convention and head of the nation's largest black-owned gospel publishing house. During Martin's tours as a vocal soloist, Washington served as her accompanist and later sang lead with the first female gospel group formed by Martin. Washington's permanent move into popular music occurred in 1942 after she turned from playing piano at the Three Deuces, a Chicago jazz club, to singing at the Garrick Stage Bar. The legendary Billie Holiday, who influenced her style, was singing in the main room when Washington started there. Washington sang for the better part of a year in the upstairs room, where bandleader Lionel Hampton came to hear her on the urging of Joe Glaser, an entertainment executive. From 1943 to May 1945, she sang with the Lionel Hampton band. Authorities differ as to who induced her to change her name during this period from Ruth Jones to Dinah Washington. Some credit Joe Sherman, owner of the Garrick Stage Bar; others, including Lionel Hampton himself, claim that it was Hampton; still others maintain that Joe Glaser was responsible. While serving as the Hampton band vocalist, Washington made her first recordings, but not with the band. Her disc of "Evil Gal Blues" and "Salty Papa Blues" was released in 1944 on the Keynote label, not Decca to which the Hampton band was signed and which apparently wanted only instrumental recordings from Hampton. With the band, Washington made only "Blowtop Blues. " After she left Hampton, she cut twelve sides for Apollo Records. Late in 1946, she signed with manager Ben Bart, who interested Mercury Records, which had taken over the Keynote sides, in recording her. On Mercury, for whom she recorded until shortly before her death, Washington established herself as the preeminent female rhythm and blues singer of the day. "I like to get inside a tune, " she once explained, "and make it mean something more to listeners than just a set of words and a familiar melody. And I can sing anything - anything at all. " In a long list of masterful singles and albums, she displayed an artistry that ran the gamut from gospel, jazz, country, and blues to show tunes and pop. Her more than twenty-five best-selling discs include "Baby Get Lost" (1949), "I'll Never Be Free" (1950), Hank Williams'"Cold, Cold Heart" (1951), "Wheel of Fortune" (1952), "I Don't Hurt Anymore" (1954), "Unforgettable" (1959), and "This Bitter Earth" (1960). Her biggest hit was a revival of a 1934 ballad, "What a Diff'rence a Day Makes, " a song this writer urged her to record in 1959 and that crossed from the rhythm and blues field into mainstream pop. Duet records with fellow Mercury artist Brook Benton also yielded crossover hits in 1960 in "Baby, You've Got What It Takes" and "A Rockin' Good Way. " Her two dozen album releases include Dinah Washington Sings Fats Waller, Swingin' Miss D, and Dinah Washington Sings Bessie Smith. Critics who caviled about her status as a jazz singer readily acknowledged her as a successor to Bessie Smith in blues. Her 1958 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival was filmed in Jazz on a Summer's Day. She toured Europe successfully, and made well-received appearances on British TV. Performing live at the London Palladium, with Queen Elizabeth attending, she announced to the audience, "There is but one heaven, one hell, and one queen, and your Elizabeth is an impostor!" Washington was imperious, temperamental, and given to tantrums.

Achievements

• She has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the '50s". Primarily a jazz vocalist, she performed and recorded in a wide variety of styles including blues, R&B, and traditional pop music, and gave herself the title of "Queen of the Blues". She was a 1986 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Complete Sessions

    ( This 3-CD, 73-track set presents, for the first time ev...)

  • The Divine Miss Dinah Washington

    (Includes the following albums: 'After Hours With Miss 'D'...)

  • 7 Classic Albums Vol. 2

    (EU-only four CD set containing a total of seven albums fr...)

  • 8 Classic Albums - Dinah Washington

    (EU four CD set containing eight albums from the Jazz grea...)

  • The Complete Dinah Washington On Mercury Vol.1 (1946 - 1949)

  • book

  • Dinah Washington In The Land Of Hi-Fi
  • Dinah Washington Sings Bessie Smith

  • book

  • Back To The Blues

Personality

Disposed to be plump, Washington went on several crash diets. A combination of reducing pills, alcohol, and sedatives reportedly caused her accidental death, in Detroit, where she had just opened a restaurant.

Connections

She was married seven times. Her first husband was John Young, a seventeen-year-old fellow student at Wendell Phillips High School in Chicago. There followed marriages, mostly short-lived, to Walter Buchanan, Raphael Campos, and Eddie Chamblee, a musician. She bore sons to George Jenkins, her husband in 1946-48, and to Robert Grayson, his successor. Her last husband, whom she married in 1963 shortly before her death, was Dick ("Night Train") Lane, backfield star of the Detroit Lions.

Father:

Ollie Jones

Mother:

Alice

Spouse:

Dick ("Night Train") Lane

Spouse:

George Jenkins

Spouse:

Eddie Chamblee

Spouse:

John Young

Spouse:

Robert Grayson

Spouse:

Walter Buchanan

Spouse:

Raphael Campos

References

• Dinah Washington
• Queen: The Life and Music of Dinah Washington