Music and song played an integral role in maintaining the morale of Allied troops and civilians during the Second World War as well as promoting the war effort at home and abroad. This week's show celebrates some of those songs and the artists that sang them.
Swell Dame - Ethel Ennis
There was a moment in 1965 when Ethel Ennis looked like the next big female vocalist in jazz. Ennis, who died Sunday (Feb. 17) at her Baltimore, Md., home of complications from a stroke, had a record contract with RCA, and she’d already performed with the likes of Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Benny Goodman. She had a lustrous soprano and a nimble way around a lyric and a scat solo.
The stardom never came, and Ennis never regretted it. She gave up the international career and settled into her role as the jazz queen of her hometown, Baltimore. She continued to perform into her early eighties (she was 86 when she died). True, she never achieved the fame of fellow Baltimorean Billie Holiday, but she never suffered through drug addiction and bad marriages either. Who’s to say that’s a bad choice?
Joni Mitchell is one of the most highly regarded and influential songwriters of the 20th century. Her melodious tunes support her poetic and often very personal lyrics to make her one of the most authentic artists of her time. As a performer she is widely hailed for her unique style of playing guitar. Mitchell's unflinching struggle for her own artistic independence has made her a role model for many other musicians, and somewhat of a bane to music industry executives. She is critical of the industry and of the shallowness that she sees in much of today's popular music. Mitchell is also a noted painter and has created the beautiful artwork that appears on the packaging of her music albums.
Jazz singer Nancy Wilson, a three-time Grammy Award-winner, was born on February 20, 1937 in Chillicothe, Ohio to iron-worker Olden Wilson and the former Lillian Ryan, who worked as a domestic servant. Nancy was the first of six children. Her father's love of music and the records he played at home were a huge influence on Nancy as a young girl. She already knew she would be a singer by the time she was four years old, and developed her talent by singing in the church choir.