Sunday Diva/Three From The Hip: Dinah Washington

Sunday Diva/Three From The Hip: 

Dinah Washington

In my own personal big gay church, there is a wing dedicated to what can only be described as...The True Divas. These are ones that may do many things in life, but from the moment they opened their mouths to sing they became the one thing they were meant to become: a true diva.

One such siren...

Dinah Washington.

"Queen Of The Blues."

A voice unlike any other... when the lady sang? Everybody listened.

Tumultuous. Temperamental. Mercurial.

A true case of a good girl gone bad... but even when she was bad, she still sparkled like a diamond.  

Washington believed in living big and taking even bigger risks.

Her signature song was her very first hit, Evil Gal Blues. She didn't just sing it, the lady lived it.

Fortunately, she had the talent to back it all up. However, as her star ascended, Washington’s behavior became more and more outrageous. She was known for staying up all night, drinking with the boys, and using every four-letter word known to man.

If a young man caught her eye during a performance? Well, to hell with the audience, color her gone. She'd walk right out in the middle of a set. See, impulsive romances? They were sort of her thing.

Falling in love with Dinah was a sure trip to heartbreak hotel. Use 'em and lose 'em. She'd go through men like most go through a box of tissues.

Unlucky in love, she married six times. 

Her relationship woes, much to her chagrin, helped sell many a copy of Jet magazine.

And she'd have probably married even more, but she died unexpectently at the age of 39; a lethal combination of secobarbital and amobarbital, medications prescribed to help her insomnia and help her lose weight.

What she left behind - besides that trail of broken hearts - was a musical legacy that helped form and inform the foundations of any number of musical genres.

The gospel according to her?

Well, here are three from the hip, dropping from her lips.

The topic? Throwing Shade

(Miss Washington took part in Leonard Feather's 'The Blindfold Test' for Downbeat magazine, during which a guest artist (in this case, Miss Washington) would listen to various new releases without knowing the recording artist's identities.)

On Joni James

"Has she got a cold? I want to know who could sound that bad? She's not a singer, because singers do not sound like that. When she says 'Say, what-cha got cooking,' it should have been her that was cooking. She sings out her nose. Well, I would like to compliment her on nothing!"

(The song in question? Hank William's Hey Good Lookin' a song James would take to the #2 spot in 1953.)

 

On Chet Baker

"Who the heck is that? A singer or someone just kidding? I don't know who it is, but the diction is just terrible. At the end it sounded like he said, "That old bubble moon." And I thought the words were, "that old devil moon." It sounds like he had a mouthful of mush. I thought it was The Velvet Fog (Mel Tormé) for a minute, but I can't imagine who it was, unless it was Chet Baker."

On Eugenie Baird 

"She really fixed Duke's (Ellington) song, there... she fixed it but good. When she came to that line, "to make amends," I was thinking, the only amends to be made is to break the record!"

Evil Gal Blues - Dinah Washington

What A Difference A Day Makes - Dinah Washington

Birth Of The Blues - Dinah Washington

And one last parting shot...  

“There is only one heaven, one earth and one queen (me.) Queen Elizabeth is an impostor.”