Stamp of the Month: August 2024

Dinah Washington

USA 16.6.1993

The American jazz singer Dinah Washington was born on August 29, 1924 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She died on December 14, 1963 in Detroit. August 2024 will mark the 100th anniversary of her birthday.
 
When Dinah Washington (actually Ruth Lee Jones) was three years old, the family moved to Chicago. There she sang in a church choir as a child. At the age of 15 she won an amateur competition that launched her professional career. At first Dinah led a church choir and played piano in clubs.

From 1943 to 1946 she sang in Lionel Hampton’s band, with whom she had her first hits. In 1947 she recorded her first R&B records for Mercury Records and in 1950 she landed her first hit in the Billboard pop charts with the song “I Wanna Be Loved”. In 1957 she performed at the Newport Jazz Festival. Her international breakthrough came in 1959 with the song “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes”, for which she was awarded a Grammy for best R&B performance.
 

The video shows a live TV appearance by Dinah Washington on the West Coast Television Show “Bandstand Revue” in 1955. The song “That’s all I want from you” was written by the Austrian composer Fritz Rotter (1900-1984), who emigrated to the USA in 1933 and worked there under the pseudonym M. Rotha.