Known as ‘The Queen of the Blues’, Washington was one of the most influential female vocalists of the post-war years, in particular for the strong jazz and gospel inflection, similar to that of Ray Charles, she brought to her fifties recordings. Raised in Chicago, Washington sang in church choirs as a teenager and joined the Sallie Martin Singers after a brief period as a nightclub singer. Hearing Billie Holiday in 1941, she returned to secular music with regular appearances at Chicago’s Garrick Club. There she was heard by Lionel Hampton whose band she joined in 1943.

   Only interested in band recordings, Decca refused to record her with Hampton and Washington’s first recordings were made by Leonard Feather for the independent Keynote label with members of the Hampton band in support.       
   These included ‘Evil Gal Blues’ and ‘Salty Papa Blues’ and were mostly in a blues vein. After leaving Hampton in 1946 and signing to Mercury as a solo singer in 1948, Washington was used by the company virtually as a living jukebox, recording what might be called reverse cover-versions: singing pop, jazz, country and R&B hits for the mainstream black audience. In 1948 she recorded The Orioles ‘It’s Too Soon to Know’, in 1950 she covered Paul Gayten’s and Annie Laurie’s Regal recording, ‘I’ll Never Be Free’; and in 1951 followed Tony Bennett in recording Hank Williams’ ‘Cold, Cold Heart’. The following year both Washington and Kay Starr had huge hits with a version of The Cardinals’ Atlantic recording ‘Wheel of Fortune’.     
   Ironically, her biggest R&B hit of this period, Feather’s ‘Baby Get Lost’ was itself covered by Billie Holiday. From the mid-fifties onwards Washington turned increasingly to jazz and it was such a recording, a version of ‘What a Difference a Day Makes’, that became her first major pop hit. In the same year her appearance in ‘Jazz on a Summer’s Day’ was one of the film’s highlights. Her subsequent hits were mostly revivals of popular songs of the thirties and forties. Among them were ‘Love Walked In’ , ‘September in the Rain’ ‘Where Are You?’, her first recording for Roulette where she worked with arranger Don Costa and producer Henry Glover.
   Interspersed with these were several duets with Brook Benton, more sensuous and less stately than Billy Eckstine’s and Sarah Vaughan’s ‘Passing Strangers’ collaboration but clearly inspired by that recording. They included ‘Baby (You Got What It Takes)’, Washington’s only million-seller, and ‘A Rockin’ Good Way (To Mess Around and Fall in Love)’.