Dinah Washington
Ruth Lee Jones
Queen of The Blues
August 29, 1924 – December 14, 1963
American singer and pianist
“The most popular black female recording artist of the ’50s”.
Jazz, Rhythm and Blues, and traditional pop music vocalist
Grammy Award Winner
Grammy Hall of Fame
Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame 1986
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 1993.
Ruth Lee Jones was born on August 29, 1924 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. As a child, Washington played piano and directed her church choir and by 16 was touring the United States on the Black gospel circuit. During this period, she performed in clubs as Dinah Washington while performing as Ruth Jones on the gospel circuit. Between 1948 and 1955, she had numerous R&B hits, including “I Won’t Cry Anymore” (1951), “Trouble in Mind” (1952), and “Teach Me Tonight” (1954). In 1959, Washington won the Grammy Award for Best Rhythm and Blues Performance for “What a Difference a Day Makes.” In 1960, she teamed up with Brook Benton for “Baby (You’ve Got What It Takes)” and “A Rockin’ Good Way (To Mess Around and Fall In Love).”
Washington was one of the most influential vocalists of the twentieth century and is credited as a major influence on Aretha Franklin. On December 14, 1963 she passed away from an overdose of drugs. Her husband football great Dick “Night Train” Lane, awoke and found her slumped over and not responsive. Doctor B. C. Ross came to the scene to pronounce her dead. An autopsy later showed a lethal combination of secobarbital and amobarbital, which contributed to her death at the age of 39. She is buried in the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.
Three of her recordings, “Teach Me Tonight” , “Unforgettable” (1959), and “What a Difference a Day Makes” , have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame as having “qualitative or historical significance.” The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame listed her recording of “Am I Asking Too Much” (1948) as one of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. In 1993, Washington was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and that same year the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative postage stamp in her honor. In 2008, the city of Tuscaloosa renamed a section of 30th Avenue Dinah Washington Avenue. Her biography, “Queen of the Blues: A Biography of Dinah Washington,” was published in 1987.