Born Ruth Lee Jones, in Tuscaloosa, AL, 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 Theatre, she began performing in nightclubs as a pianist and singer, opening at the Garrick Bar in 1942. Joe Glaser, a talent manager, 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 Bar. She stayed with Hampton from 1943 to 1946 and made her recording debut at the end of 1943 in a blues session organized by Leonard Feather. 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. Washington produced a string of Top 10 hits on the R&B charts from 1948 to 1955, singing all different types of musical styles. In 1959, Washington crossed-over into the mainstream pop market with What a Diff'rence a Day Makes. Dinah was the most loved and controversial singer of the mid-20th Century. Her fans and contemporaries loved her but her critics accused her of selling out. Her voice was a high, courageous and clear. Her personal life was rocky, with seven marriages, and her singing showed it, for she displayed a tough, unfeeling, yet still gripping hold on the topic of lost love. She struggled with weight problems. Washington died of an accidental overdose of diet pills mixed with alcohol at the age of 39. She was in peak voice, still singing the blues in a Los Angeles club two weeks before the end.

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