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The Kids'
Corner Washington’s soulful voice made her ‘Queen of Blues’ Dinah Washington was her era’s "Queen of the Blues." Her silky soprano voice was pleasingly penetrating, and her audiences in the 1940s and early 1950s delighted in her dramatic phrasing and crystal-clear lyrics. She used her versatile voice to sing mournful songs like "Willow Weep For Me"; bawdy, raucous tunes like "Salty Papa Blues" and "Muddy Water"; soulful pieces like "Maybe I’m a Fool"; and happy-in-love songs like "What a Difference a Day Makes," which became her signature song. Born Ruth Jones in August 1924 in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Washington began singing at age 3. She moved with her family to Chicago, where she sang in church choirs and learned to play the piano. When she was 15, Washington joined one of the most famous gospel singers of the 1930s, Sallie Martin, and toured the country with her group. Early in 1940, she won a talent contest at Chicago’s Regal Theatre and began a professional performing career in local nightclubs. Deeply spiritual, Washington never included gospel songs in her professional repertoire, although she did, for a short while, maintain separate performing personas, using her birth name for gospel shows. She toured with Lionel Hampton’s jazz band for three years, until 1946, when she left to try out a solo career. She was earning $700 a week singing at a time when the average U.S. worker was earning $50 a week. She gradually adopted a slower singing style, turning to ballads with lush orchestral backgrounds that many music experts say diminished the freshness of her expressive voice. In 1963, when Washington was 39 years old, she died from an accidental overdose of diet pills and alcohol. — By Emily L. Bell
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