Born Ruth Jones in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in August 1924, Dinah Washington moved to Chicago’s South Side when she was three or four. Her mother played piano at St. Luke’s Baptist Church, passing along her keyboard prowess to her young offspring. Spirituals comprised much of her initial focus; she hooked up with gospel pioneer Sallie Martin in 1940, hitting the road for a time as her accompanist. Yet secular pursuits had long intrigued her. Before joining Martin, the young singer had copped first prize at a Regal Theater amateur contest.
Whether it was bandleader Lionel Hampton, booking agent Joe Glaser, or Garrick Stage Bar boss Joe Sherman who gave Ruth the memorable stage handle of Dinah, there’s no disputing her steady rise to stardom. A featured billing the Garrick led Hampton to hire her to sing with his big band in 1943.
Jazz critic Leonard Feather caught her with the Hampton band that December at Harlem’s Apollo and convinced Keynote Records to sponsor her debut session, but recording opportunities proved scarce while she was in Hampton’s employ. Before year’s end, Washington bid Hampton adieu, recording three Los Angeles sessions for the Apollo label under her own name before signing with the then-fledgling Mercury. She cut her first date for Mercury in January 1946, and by the summer of ’48 her solo star was in rapid ascension.
At the same time, she was interacting with some serious jazz royalty. She recorded with trumpeters Clifford Brown and Clark Terry, drummer Max Roach, and saxophonists Lockjaw Davis and Cannonball Adderley in the mid-Fifties, utilized Quincy Jones’s budding talents as an arranger, and employed pianist Wynton Kelly, drummer Jimmy Cobb, and tenor saxophonist Eddie Chamblee in her combo for extended stretches. (Chamblee was also one of her many husbands.)
Finally, in 1959, she made the full-fledged leap to pop stardom, thanks to the lovely Belford Hendricks-arranged ballad "What a Diff’rence a Day Makes", which reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. 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)". Thanks to A&R man Clyde she mined more pop gold with the stately "Unforgettable" and "This Bitter Earth".
About six months after her marriage to football player Dick "Night Train" Lane, she died in Detroit on December 14, 1963 at only thirty-nine from an accidental overdose of prescription sleeping medication ingested on an empty stomach. Washington, who was just 5'2" tall and had fought a weight problem all her life, was dieting to lose weight before a New Year's Eve party she was giving with her friend Bea Buck. A recent surge in popularity can be credited to a promo being run by Doubletree Hotels which features "Relax Max", a catchy tune from the The Swingin' Miss "D" album. Find out more about this jazz legend at her longtime record company's website: www.vervemusicgroup.com/artist.aspx?aid=2851
Research info provided by Bill Dahl
Visit my ezine: http://www.concelebratory.blogspot.com/
and personal blog: http://www.copyat5.blogspot.com/
Whether it was bandleader Lionel Hampton, booking agent Joe Glaser, or Garrick Stage Bar boss Joe Sherman who gave Ruth the memorable stage handle of Dinah, there’s no disputing her steady rise to stardom. A featured billing the Garrick led Hampton to hire her to sing with his big band in 1943.
Jazz critic Leonard Feather caught her with the Hampton band that December at Harlem’s Apollo and convinced Keynote Records to sponsor her debut session, but recording opportunities proved scarce while she was in Hampton’s employ. Before year’s end, Washington bid Hampton adieu, recording three Los Angeles sessions for the Apollo label under her own name before signing with the then-fledgling Mercury. She cut her first date for Mercury in January 1946, and by the summer of ’48 her solo star was in rapid ascension.
At the same time, she was interacting with some serious jazz royalty. She recorded with trumpeters Clifford Brown and Clark Terry, drummer Max Roach, and saxophonists Lockjaw Davis and Cannonball Adderley in the mid-Fifties, utilized Quincy Jones’s budding talents as an arranger, and employed pianist Wynton Kelly, drummer Jimmy Cobb, and tenor saxophonist Eddie Chamblee in her combo for extended stretches. (Chamblee was also one of her many husbands.)
Finally, in 1959, she made the full-fledged leap to pop stardom, thanks to the lovely Belford Hendricks-arranged ballad "What a Diff’rence a Day Makes", which reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. 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)". Thanks to A&R man Clyde she mined more pop gold with the stately "Unforgettable" and "This Bitter Earth".
About six months after her marriage to football player Dick "Night Train" Lane, she died in Detroit on December 14, 1963 at only thirty-nine from an accidental overdose of prescription sleeping medication ingested on an empty stomach. Washington, who was just 5'2" tall and had fought a weight problem all her life, was dieting to lose weight before a New Year's Eve party she was giving with her friend Bea Buck. A recent surge in popularity can be credited to a promo being run by Doubletree Hotels which features "Relax Max", a catchy tune from the The Swingin' Miss "D" album. Find out more about this jazz legend at her longtime record company's website: www.vervemusicgroup.com/artist.aspx?aid=2851
Research info provided by Bill Dahl
Visit my ezine: http://www.concelebratory.blogspot.com/
and personal blog: http://www.copyat5.blogspot.com/
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