Dinah Washington (1924-1963) rocketed to stardom in the 1950s. Her distinctive blues, jazz and R&B music topped the charts, earning her the title ‘Queen of the Blues.'
Dinah Washington (1924-1963) rocketed to stardom in the 1950s. Her distinctive blues, jazz and R&B music topped the charts, earning her the title ‘Queen of the Blues.'
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Today’s musician rocketed to stardom in the 1950s. Her distinctive blues, jazz and R&B music topped the charts, earning her the title ‘Queen of the Blues’.
Let’s talk about Dinah Washington.
Dinah Washington was born Ruth Lee Jones, on August 29, 1924 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. When she was young, her family moved to Chicago, where her mother joined the music ministry at their local church. Ruth learned how to play piano and sing from her mother, and quickly joined her church’s choir. By age eleven, she was traveling across the country, singing gospel at church recitals.
When Ruth was fifteen, she won a talent competition at Chicago’s Regal Theatre. From there, she began singing in nightclubs across Chicago.
In 1943, when Ruth was eighteen, a talent manager named Joe Glaser heard her singing at a club. Impressed with her vocals, Joe introduced her to Lionel Hampton, who led a renowned orchestra that sang at the Regal Theater. Lionel offered her a job and she began performing with Lionel’s orchestra under a new name: Dinah Washington.
Dinah toured with Lionel for three years. She recorded some of her first hit songs during that time - like her song “Evil Gal Blues,” which appeared in Billboard magazine’s Harlem Hit Parade.
With her gritty, high pitched voice, Dinah had a unique vocal style that bent genres - she sang R&B, blues, jazz, and pop. Her songs were varied, but often contained themes of love, heartbreak, and women wronged. These themes were personal to her own life - over the course of her career, Dinah herself would be married at least six times.
In 1946 Dinah signed a record deal with Mercury Records, and went solo. From there, her career skyrocketed. From 1948 to 1955, she had over twenty five R&B top ten hits, making her one of the most popular singers of the time. In 1949, her song “Baby Get Lost” hit number one on the billboard charts, and in 1952 she had a number four hit with “Trouble in Mind.”
Throughout her career, Dinah recorded with acclaimed jazz musicians. In 1955, the legendary Quincy Jones arranged her album “Dinah Washington: For Those in Love”. Later, Quincy Jones wrote that Dinah “could take the melody in her hand, hold it like an egg, crack it open, fry it, let it sizzle, reconstruct it, put the egg back in the box and back in the refrigerator and you would've still understood every single syllable.”
Dinah’s success kept her touring across the country - singing at large jazz festivals and performing with other celebrated musicians like Count Basie and Duke Ellington.
In 1959, Dinah crossed over to pop records with her song “What a Difference a Day Makes.” The song is largely considered one of her greatest commercial successes, and won her a Grammy award for best R&B record.
When Dinah was just 39 years old, she died of an accidental overdose in 1963.
After her death, her music continued to be influential in ushering blues into the mainstream. In 1993, she was inducted into the Rock n’ Roll hall of fame, and three of her songs have been added to the Grammy Hall of Fame.