Queen: The Life and Music of Dinah Washington

by Nadine Cohodas

Book Overview

Queen is the landmark biography of the brief, intensely lived life and soulful music of the great Dinah Washington. A gospel star at fifteen, she was discovered by jazz great Lionel Hampton at... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375421483
• ISBN13: 9780375421488
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: Pantheon Books
• Length: 576 Pages
• Weight: 2.13 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.1" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

A fine insider's guide to the real Dinah

Born Ruth Lee Jones in 1924 in Alabama, singer Dinah Washington's family moved to Chicago where she became a local gospel star at fifteen - but she didn't stop there. When she was discovered by Lionel Hampton at eighteen, Dinah made her way to New York's Apollo Theatre and became a legend. Queen: The Life And Music Of Dinah Washington reviews her life and music, delving into her high and low moments alike. A fine insider's guide to the real Dinah.

It's only the music I love.

I finished this book while listening to her multiple CD collections. The book gets five stars for its scholarship, its extensive notes, its all inclusive index. But still it seems too cold for the subject at hand, or perhaps I'm just disappointed that Dinah Washington was more shallow than I imagined her to be. Probably the latter. Also Cohodas's appraisal of the albums I enjoyed most is just the opposite of what I feel myself. What I hear as honest and tragic, the biography calls tired and too husky. And the other way around. I had no idea that Dinah Washington did "It's Too Soon To Know" before Etta James (who owns the song in my estimation). Etta James came later, and she idolized Dinah Washington and made her sound her own, strings and all. When Etta James spotted Dinah Washington in the audience at the nightclub where she was singing, she abandoned her original program and sang "Unforgettable" as a tribute to her idol. The song was broken up by Dinah Washington screaming at her, pointing a finger at her saying, "Girl, don't you ever try to do the Queen's songs." According to Cohodas, Dinah Washington's lovers, to whom she dedicated songs, were usually gone by the time the records were released. She was married seven times and had many lovers in-between. Such as the "Rafael" she mentions on her cover of Irving Berlin's "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm." Dinah was dead at thirty-nine, but her music lives on and always will for this listener. This biography reminds me again that Art is part the author and part the reader, part the singer and part the listener. What I hear in her music has not changed.