August 29, 1924

Singer and pianist Dinah Washington was born in Tuscaloosa. Known as the “Queen of the Blues,” Washington performed in a variety of musical styles and became one of the most popular black recording artists of the 1950s. Between 1949 and 1955, she released 27 Billboard R&B top 10 hits and, in 1959, won a Grammy Award for “What a Difference a Day Makes.” That song and two other recordings – “Teach Me Tonight” and “Unforgettable”– were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame as recordings of qualitative or historical significance. Washington was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Dinah Washington, August 30, 1952. (Photograph by James Kriegsmann, Billboard Magazine, Wikipedia)

Dinah Washington’s album, The Best of Dinah Washington. (Communicom.es, Flickr)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.