Read Full Biography. Queen of the Blues, Dinah Washington (August 29, 1924 – December 14, 1963) and husband actor Rafael Campos* (May 13 1936 – July 9, 1985). The men in her life couldn’t contain her any more than narrow ideas of music and marketing could. In 1959, Washington made a sudden breakthrough into the mainstream pop market with "What a Diff'rence a Day Makes," a revival of a Dorsey Brothers hit set to a Latin American bolero tune. Dinah Washington. Best Amy Winehouse Songs: 20 Soulful Essentials, The Greatest Album Covers: 100 Pioneering Sleeve Designs, Motown And Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have A Dream Speech, About Us • Contributors • Terms of Service • Privacy Policy • © 2020 uDiscoverMusic, Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images. Being a pop star, but especially a Black woman pop star, comes with its own dilemma. Washington's personal life was turbulent, with seven marriages behind her, and her interpretations showed it, for she displayed a tough, totally unsentimental, yet still gripping hold on the universal subject of lost love. Her principal sin, apparently, was to cultivate a distinctive vocal style that was at home in all kinds of music, be it R&B, blues, jazz, middle of the road pop -- and she probably would have made a fine gospel or country singer had she the time. In a world where Black women are consistently expected to compromise, Dinah Washington made few. Rock Hall is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit in the United States. Listen to Dinah Washington on Apple Music and Spotify. At the time of her passing, she had been the last of one class – of “the real, soulful, and colorful blues belters,” as Jet wrote at the time – and the first of so many others. She has had a huge influence on R&B and jazz singers who have followed in her wake, notably Nancy Wilson, Esther Phillips, and Diane Schuur, and her music is abundantly available nowadays via the huge seven-volume series The Complete Dinah Washington on Mercury. Dinah Washington was at once one of the most beloved and controversial singers of the mid-20th century -- beloved to her fans, devotees, and fellow singers; controversial to critics who still accuse her of selling out her art to commerce and bad taste. The songs she recorded in that period landed her on the charts over and over. Washington was born Ruth Lee Jones in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1924, but grew up in Chicago’s Southside. She and her mother became a popular attraction at local churches, earning little money but considerable respect. By using this website you agree to our Privacy Policy. One of the finest and most versatile vocalists in American musical history, who moved effortlessly from pop to gospel to jazz. Play next; Play now; Dinah Washington - Embraceable You (1946) by direfranchement. Struggling with a weight problem, Washington died of an accidental overdose of diet pills mixed with alcohol at the tragically early age of 39, still in peak voice, still singing the blues in an L.A. club only two weeks before the end. 2:56. (It only later became known as the R&B chart.) For the rest of her career, she would concentrate on singing ballads backed by lush orchestrations for Mercury and Roulette, a formula similar to that of another R&B-based singer at that time, Ray Charles, and one that drew plenty of fire from critics even though her basic vocal approach had not changed one iota. Dinah had no shame in her game and changed husbands like clothes. Before that record, the realization of her potential was bound to the imaginations of white music execs and the ways they marketed Black music. Dinah Washington - Such A Night (live At The Apollo 1955).mpg by jazzokok. Indeed, critics found “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes” and Washington’s continued forays into orchestral easy listening to be too commercial or mainstream. Read our Privacy Policy for more information. All great pop stars claim space in the service of a vision that may only be clear to them. 2:32. 1956: In the Land of Hi-Fi Washington insisted her voice be a shape-shifter. Washington was raised by a devoutly religious mother who sang in church and taught piano in the neighborhood, Washington learned to play piano at an early age and proved to be a powerful gospel singer.