DINAH WASHINGTON
The Queen of the Jukebox packed a lot of living, including seven marriages, into her thirty-nine years. She was equally celebrated in the r&b and jazz worlds, and worked with the greatest players in each.
The girl born Ruth Jones in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in 1924 could have been a major figure in gospel as well. During her Chicago upbringing, she played piano for renowned gospel leader Sallie Martin. However, she won an amateur contest at Chicago’s Regal Theater at age 15, which pointed her down the road of blues. In 1942, she was singing at the Garrick Bar when Joe Glaser, Louis Armstrong’s manager, recommended her to Lionel Hampton, who hired her. A small combo from Hampton’s orchestra backed her up on her December 1943 recording debut on Keynote. The jazz writer and composer Leonard Feather wrote two songs for the occasion, “Evil Gal Blues” and “Salty Papa Blues."
When she went solo in 1946, she signed with the Apollo label and then switched to Mercury in 1948. R&b hits such as “Westside Baby” and “Baby Get Lost” followed. However, it was not until 1959 that she crossed over with the pop song “What A Difference A Day Makes.” Along the way, she also worked with such jazz greats as Cootie Williams, Clifford Brown, Max Roach and Quincy Jones. In the early 1960s she did a series of duets with Brooke Benton.
Washington could be hot-tempered. In her autobiography Rage To Survive, Etta James tells of hearing a table full of glasses crash onto the floor at a club date, only to see Washington stand up and scream at her for doing one of Washington’s signature numbers. The mortified James left the stage in tears.
In 1963, Washington was trying to lose weight with the help of prescription diet pills while on tour. She also had too much to drink while playing Detroit, and thus was hushed the first great r&b voice, an instrument that has been held in awe by every singer in the genre since that sad night.
ESTHER PHILLIPS
Bitterness has entered into the life and art of a number of black woman singers, but Esther Phillips made it the centerpiece of her expression. While still a child, she was deceived by people ranging from her minister, who seduced and then shunned her, to her mother, who pilfered her performance money and tried to blame tour organizer Johnny Otis.
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