Dinah Washington & Brook Benton
Dinah Washington was one of the most beloved and versatile singers of the mid-20th century, at home in all kinds of music, be it R&B, blues, jazz, gospel, and pop. Hers was a gritty voice, marked by absolute clarity of diction and clipped, bluesy phrasing. Washington's personal life was turbulent and her interpretations showed it, for she displayed a tough, totally unsentimental, yet still gripping hold on the universal subject of lost love. From the 1940s onwards, she scored numerous Top Ten singles on the R&B charts before crossing over to the pop charts with 1959's What a Diff'rence a Day Makes!, which also won her Grammy for Best R&B Performance. Although she died young in 1963, 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. Her music as been collected on several large-volume series, including The Complete Dinah Washington on Mercury and The Complete Roulette Dinah Washington Sessions.
Born Ruth Lee Jones, she moved to Chicago at age three and was raised in a world of gospel, playing the piano and directing her church choir. At 15, after winning an amateur contest at the Regal Theater, she began performing in nightclubs as a pianist and singer, opening at the Garrick Stage Bar in 1942. Talent manager Joe Glaser heard her there and recommended her to Lionel Hampton, who asked her to join his band. Hampton says that it was he who gave Ruth Jones the name Dinah Washington, although other sources claim it was Glaser or the manager of the Garrick Stage Bar. In any case, she stayed with Hampton from 1943 to 1946 and made her recording debut for Keynote at the end of 1943 in a blues session organized by Leonard Feather with a sextet drawn from the Hampton band. With Feather's "Evil Gal Blues" as her first hit, the records took off, and by the time she left Hampton to go solo, Washington was already an R&B headliner.
Signing with the young Mercury label, Washington produced an enviable string of Top Ten hits on the R&B charts from 1948 to 1955, singing blues, standards, novelties, pop covers, and even Hank Williams' "Cold, Cold Heart." She also recorded many straight jazz sessions with big bands and small combos, most memorably with Clifford Brown on Dinah Jams but also with Cannonball Adderley, Clark Terry, Ben Webster, Wynton Kelly, and the young Joe Zawinul (who was her regular accompanist for a couple of years).
In 1959, Washington made a sudden breakthrough into the mainstream pop market with What a Diff'rence a Day Makes! The album featured a revival of composer María Grever's 1930s composition (also previously a hit for the Dorsey Brothers) set to a Latin American bolero rhythm. It was a Top Ten Hot 100 hit and won the Grammy for Best R&B Performance. For the rest of her career, she would largely 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. Included among these are gems like her 1961 rendition of Billie Holiday's "Don't Explain," which has a beautiful, bluesy Ernie Wilkins chart conducted by Quincy Jones. Tragically, Washington died of an accidental overdose of diet and sleeping pills mixed with alcohol at the early age of 39, still in peak voice, still singing the blues in an L.A. club only two weeks before the end.
© Richard S. Ginell /TiVo
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Discographie
14 album(s) • Trié par Meilleures ventes
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The Two of a Kind
Dinah Washington & Brook Benton
Soul - Paru chez Wideline City Records le 4 juin 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Hither And Thiter and Yon
Dinah Washington & Brook Benton
Jazz - Paru chez Eco Sound le 4 nov. 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
So Many Ways
Dinah Washington & Brook Benton
Jazz - Paru chez Crusade Records le 12 juin 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Masters at Work
Dinah Washington & Brook Benton
Pop - Paru chez Vintage Vinyl Records le 3 mars 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Late Night Lovers
Dinah Washington, Dinah Washington & Brook Benton
Jazz - Paru chez Late Night Lovers le 21 oct. 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Fifty Years ago
Dinah Washington, Dinah Washington & Brook Benton
Jazz - Paru chez Fifty Years le 9 juil. 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
In dear old London
Dinah Washington, Dinah Washington & Brook Benton
Jazz - Paru chez In dear old London le 7 oct. 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mysterious
Dinah Washington, Dinah Washington & Brook Benton
Jazz - Paru chez Mysterious le 26 juin 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Lonely Heart
Dinah Washington, Dinah Washington & Brook Benton
Jazz - Paru chez Lonely Heart le 25 nov. 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Only The Best Hits
Dinah Washington, Dinah Washington & Brook Benton
Jazz - Paru chez Only The Best Hits le 29 avr. 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Magic Melody
Dinah Washington, Dinah Washington & Brook Benton
Jazz - Paru chez Magic Melody le 26 juil. 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Baby (You've Got What It Takes)
Dinah Washington & Brook Benton
R&B - Paru chez Milestones Records le 2 mai 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
A Rockin' Good Way
Dinah Washington & Brook Benton
Rock - Paru chez Milestones Records le 26 avr. 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
A Matter of Time
Dinah Washington & Brook Benton
Pop - Paru chez Record Classics le 21 déc. 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo