My first wife was an alcoholic but I didn't know it ..... I would come home and she would be there with all the lights out in the house and I wouldn't even think she was home ..... I would turn on the lights and say 'Geraldine, what is it? Why are you in here with the lights out listening to Dinah (Washington) and crying? And she say 'Oh baby, this gal just sings right to you.' I'd say 'Girl, if you if you don't fix me some dinner ....' - Dick "Night Train" Lane, Dinah Washington's last husband.
Born Ruth Lee Jones, the woman who would become Dinah Washington often had a mood altering effect on her fans. She could make you cry or blush or make you mean and evil just like her. She was perhaps the first to make the successful leap from gospel to secular music in the 1940's, and everything she did thereafter had the stamp of her beginnings in the church. Her voice was also steeped in the tradition of Bessie Smith's blues only it was remixed for a new generation. As Jones rapidly transformed into Dinah Washington, Queen of the Blues, her style was biting yet tender. She could tear your heart out with a desperate ballad like I Want To Be Loved or completely turn you with the rough-edged sexual innuendo of songs like Short John and Long John Blues . Regardless, her diction was always clear and precise! One writer aptly described her voice as a mixture of honey and vinegar.
But something changed around 1959. She was more into talk-singing and the voice was less fluid and rapidly becoming a lot more brittle. It certainly wasn't comparable to the torn-to-shreds timbre of Billie Holiday's instrument or Whitney Houston's shameful decline, but she was having trouble hitting the notes that she could once belt so effortlessly. During that time, Washington became one of the first black women to win a Grammy Award and she was still in her prime but there was definitely something amiss. It was undeniable by the release of her last album for Mercury, and with her subsequent material for Roulette.
So what happened with the voice change between 1959-63? I recently had the opportunity to bring the subject up to Nadine Cohodas, author of the exhaustive biography Queen: The Life And Music Of Dinah Washington. Ms. Cohodas seemed very protective of the Queen's image, and gently tried to sway my interests away from some of the more gossipy questions that I wanted answers to but shared with me that she thought it was a combination of almost 20 years of intense singing and the prescription drugs that eventually killed her.
Dinah Washington suffered chronic insecurities about her weight so there were crash diets and more doctors only happy to prescribe them. Doctors were coming and going prescribing pills for this, for that, pills to perk up, to come down, to put weight back on, take water off and even to go to the bathroom. There were also different injections for one thing or another and her resistance was low. All of the impurities entering her system caused her voice to come, go and loose some of its power. Washington took comfort in alcohol and spiraled out of control.
She died of an accidental overdose in winter, 1963.
It's now chic to use Washington's voice as the soundtrack (Relax Max, Mad About The Boy, Destination Moon) for commercials and campaigns and I'm not complaining. I love that. But many younger, unknowing listeners - forever looking for the next voice to blow them into the stratosphere - frequently start out with Washington's latter more pop-oriented material of the early 60's, ignoring the grittier, earthy earlier stuff, and often end up saying 'What's the big deal?'
I never had that problem! I was still being potty-trained when my aunt Josephine introduced me to her old 78 record collection and played I Diddle for me. There was an instant connection. And when my mother gave me her old copy of What A Difference A Day Makes (with Come On Home on the flip), Washington's voice did things to me that I could not quite comprehend. I took it for normal, but found it was really quite unusual after I shocked my sister's new boyfriend, my brother-in-law to be, by spinning Dinah's full Late Late Show album on my kiddie record player. I wasn't crying like Night Train's first wife, but I knew I was feeling something that I could not describe at the time. There's a vid of I Diddle on Youtube but it's not the mix released on the 78 and 45 versions so I chose not to include it here.
Some of my favorite Dinah recordings are Feel Like I Wanna Cry, I Wanna Be Loved, This Bitter Earth, Manhattan, Gambler's Blues, West Side Baby, Salty Papa Blues, Evil Gal Blues, I Could Have Told You, Back Water Blues aka Trouble In The Lowlands, Mean and Evil, Big Long Slidin' Thing, and all of the material on the Apollo label. I especially love the albums The Swingin' Miss "D", For Those In Love, and Dinah '62.
Those are just a few because there are so many. Her recorded output is tremendous! Whatever the year or era, they're almost all great and you can bet that she's teaching Voice 101 every single time.
Thanks again, Corey.
You gave an insightful description of what led to the changes in the Queen Dinah's singing voice. The thing is I loved her voice in the 40s, 50s and 60s (and I can tell you did too). But I understand what you're saying. It's just like when some people want to know, "what the big fuss was about Billie Holdiday's voice". Then you find out that they've only heard Lady's late 1950s voice--never knowing her masterpieces from the late 30s and early 40s.
I never wanted to say that Queen Dinah was my favorite. I don't exactly know why. Maybe the tales of her personality still scare me. (I don't mind bossified people, but give me some predictability about when they're about to go into attack mode.) I always had trouble putting Queen Dinah at the top of my list.
Lady Day seemed more sophisticated and stylish.
Ella and Sarah could amaze you with the things they did with their voices.
Mahalia and Marion Williams could rock your soul.
Aretha was/is a genius with a voice that holds 300 years of history in it.
Nina Simone was so sensual she could cause un-aided orgasms.
Ethel Waters may have been the greatest all around entertainer of the 20th Century.
And the Empress Bessie Smith was the Down-Home Goddess who gave me my race card when I was still listening to Garland and Streisand. (no, I didn't steal that thought from James Baldwin)
So, I finally had to ask myself, "Well, who do you listen to the most?"
And, yep, I guess Queen Dinah is my favorite of all time too...but please don't tell that to Big Joe Turner(but we're talking about the ladies here).
Posted by: Derrick from Philly | January 06, 2012 at 04:36 PM
WOW, Derrick, what an AWESOME comment!
Trust me, I appreciate it.
You know, the record label powers that be weren't all that keen about allowing the Queen to step off the R&B/Blues charts too quickly, and then the so-called "critics" and "experts" weren't too readily accepting of her once she did.
For much of her career, and up until recent years, Washington was quite underappreciated even by the audience who once loved her most - US!
But that's been rectified quite nicely, don't ya' think?!
C.
Posted by: Corey | January 06, 2012 at 10:04 PM