Folks it's that time of year again. You have your tax return and now it's time to invest in the future of community radio. Support the station that supports Swell Dames. You can subscribe here https://www.3mdr.com/its-radiothon-subscribe-today/ and Ross and Dale will promise to love you long time.
Folks it's that time of year again. You have your tax return and now it's time to invest in the future of community radio. Support the station that supports Swell Dames. You can subscribe here https://www.3mdr.com/its-radiothon-subscribe-today/ and Ross and Dale will promise to love you long time.
Folks it's that time of year again. You have your tax return and now it's time to invest in the future of community radio. Support the station that supports Swell Dames. You can subscribe here https://www.3mdr.com/its-radiothon-subscribe-today/ and Ross and Dale will promise to love you long time.
Not every songwriter could be a George and Ira Gershwin or a Jerome Kern but some of them could knock out a great tune even if it was only once. This is the story of some of them.
Born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the former Ruth Lee Jones moved with her family to Chicago as a young girl. She considered the Windy City her true home. And it was there in early 1940s that a local nightclub owner provided her first gig - and a new name that she would make famous. By 1959 she had earned a Grammy for her version of the song "What a Diff'rence a Day Makes." In his 2001 biography Q, music legend Quincy Jones vividly describes Washington's style, saying she "could take the melody in her hand, hold it like an egg, crack it open, fry it, let it sizzle, reconstruct it, put the egg back in the box and back in the refrigerator and you would've still understood every single syllable."
A jazz singer who won early acclaim for her interpretations of classic songs, then re-emerged decades later from near-obscurity.
Her final album "Live at Birdland" was released in 2022, 60 years after her debut recording "Out of the Blue".
From 1969 to 1977, she lived near Raleigh, North Carolina, where she worked as a legal secretary and sang occasionally in a local nightclub. She sang in church choirs, then at age 14 began singing with a local big band, making 9 dollars a night.
A jazz singer who won early acclaim for her interpretations of classic songs, then re-emerged decades later from near-obscurity.
Her final album "Live at Birdland" was released in 2022, 60 years after her debut recording "Out of the Blue".
From 1969 to 1977, she lived near Raleigh, North Carolina, where she worked as a legal secretary and sang occasionally in a local nightclub. She sang in church choirs, then at age 14 began singing with a local big band, making 9 dollars a night.
Lurlean Hunter (1928-1983) was, with all her skills, one of the most underappreciated singers in America. Other singers, who held her in universal high regard, were in no doubt as to her quality. A singers' singer, she was revered for her near perfection in vocal styling, technique, and delivery, gifts she blended into a captivating combination. This distinction is self-evident in the four albums she recorded during her career: Lonesome Gal (1955), Night Life (1956), Stepping Out (1957), and Blue and Sentimental (1960). On them she is accompanied by orchestras filled by some of the best New York jazz musicians. The skillful writing was provided by a handful of top arrangers, including Quincy Jones, Marion Evans, Manny Albam, Al Cohn, Ernie Wilkins, Phil Moore, and Jimmy Giuffre. All of them with the exception of Cohn and Wilkins also conducted their own scores. Throughout she is refreshingly unselfconscious, her voice strong and firm, her conception mature and intelligent and her phrasing meaningful. Blessed with fantastic intonation, effortless ease and innate musicianship, she also had an innately lyrical approach to the songs she sang, and they flowed out of her like something made of rich velvet, done in exquisite taste.
Dinah Shore, the quintessential American girl, was both America’s sweetheart in the 1940s and 1950s and a leading example of an independent woman in the 1970s. Her career spanned over forty years and included stints on the radio and in the movies. Her most enduring legacy, however, is her impressive vocal recordings and television shows.
One of the least regarded, but arguably the most talented of the many female pianist/vocalists who inhabited the West Coast during the 1940s, Mabel Scott was beautiful, elegant and classically trained, with a strong voice suitable for torchy ballads as well as uptempo jump novelties. And she was married, albeit briefly, to one of the major stars of 1940s black music. Small wonder, then, that she was not more commercially successful during her recording career - or more well-known today than she is.