Forebears: The Mercurial And Majestic Dinah Washington
With technical mastery and endless style, Washington never sang the same song the same way twice. No singer since has had Washington's particular combination of talent, sass and pluck.
What a Diff'rence a Day Makes, released in 1959, was her biggest record, and not a single person who knew could describe her any better than that. Her temperament was so changeable that a producer at Mercury Records reportedly kept four to five different playlists of prospective songs that she might sing during a recording session, hoping that one might match her mood. But Washington's mood — like a sneaky left hook — was not so easily divined. Some of those songs probably never got sung. On any day and at any hour, Mercury was going to need another playlist.
