Sue Raney born June 18, 1940

Raelene Claire Claussen, known professionally as Sue Raney (born June 18, 1940, in McPherson, Kansas), is an American jazz singer. Raney was signed by Capitol Records in 1957 at age 17. That same year, she recorded her debut album, When Your Lover Has Gone, produced by Nelson Riddle.

Raney 1955

Blessed with a beautiful voice from an early age, Sue Raney has performed music ranging from swinging jazz and ballads to cabaret, middle-of-the-road pop and jingles. Her mother was a singer and a great great aunt had been in German opera. Raney started singing when she was four and a year later she first performed in public, at a party in Wichita, Kansas. Because a voice teacher could not be found for her daughter (because of her extreme youth), Raney's mother took voice lessons herself and then passed down what she learned to Sue. 

 

A professional before she was a teenager, Raney worked steadily in New Mexico when her family relocated and took several trips out to Los Angeles during a couple of summer vacations. She joined the Jack Carson radio show in 1954 in L.A. when she was barely 14.

Raney with Ray Anthony

Raney then appeared on Ray Anthony's television program and became his band's main vocalist. At 18 she started working as a single. She had already recorded for Phillips and then signed with Capitol, recording several middle-of-the-road jazz-influenced pop dates for the company. In 1960, Raney recorded, "Biology" , directed by Bill, which became Capitol's first single elevated to national promotion after introducing it in regional pre-testing that same year. Raney was featured with the Stan Kenton orchestra in 1962 on the hour-long television special Music of 1960s.

Raney with Nat King Cole

Throughout the 1960's Raney often appeared on television variety shows, she led her own group and became very active in the studios where her impressive voice helped sell products. Raney sang the theme song to the 1967 psychological thriller film Wait Until Dark, starring Audrey Hepburn. The song, bearing the title of the film, was composed by Henry Mancini, lyrics by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans.

Raney with Dean Martin

In the 1970s, she appeared on numerous TV variety shows. The Dean Martin Show, The Danny Kaye Show, The Red Skelton show, countless appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, The Joey Bishop Late Show, and The Mike Douglas Show. She also appeared with Henry Mancini on a PBS Special that included such stars as Julie Andrews, Andy Williams, Johnny Mathis and Steve Allen…among others. She did appearances with Bob Hope, Don Rickles and Bob Newhart, with the latter two in the Las Vegas main showrooms. She toured and sang with the Four Freshmen in the late '60's and early '70's. By the early 1980's, she was also working as a voice teacher.

Raney voiced Patti Bear in The Great Bear Scare (1983), an animated Halloween sequel to The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas. Her single "Early Morning Blues and Greens" was played on easy-listening stations, peaking at No. 16 on the Billboard magazine MOR chart. She sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Dodger Stadium before the sixth game of the 1978 World Series. At the time, she was married to Ed Yelin of Capitol Records. She also performed on three albums titled Supersax and LA Voices, Vol. 1 (1983), Vol. 2 (1984), and Vol. 3 (1986). The LA Voices of Volume 1 received a Grammy nomination for the 26th Annual Grammy Awards in the category "Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Duo or Group".

Raney with Carmen Fanzone

In the 1990's Sue Raney has sung with the L.A. Voices and Supersax, the Bill Watrous big band and as a single in addition to staying active as a jazz educator and in the studios. Her main jazz recordings were a trio of albums for Discovery in the 1980's; a VSOP/Studio West CD features the singer on various live performances from the 1960's. In more recent times, she has been performing with the Pops conductor, Richard Kaufman, doing symphony concerts in the U.S. She has also toured with Michel Legrand and performed in numerous jazz festival in the U.S. and abroad. When not performing, she was a vocal coach, and taught from her home in Sherman Oaks, where she resided with her husband, Carmen Fanzone. 

Retired now, Raney can look back on her career with satisfaction and gratitude for the chances she was given at such an early age. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, AllMusic, Jazz Journal & her official Website)

Mildred Anderson born circa 1928/29)

Mildred Anderson (born circa 1928/29) was a criminally overlooked, and now completely unjustly forgotten, excellent Brooklyn American jazz, blues and R&B singer who built a reputation in the New York  clubs during the second half of the 1940s.

Albert Ammons

Blues shouter Mildred Anderson is barely known today and there is hardly any information about her on the web, not even a birthdate. Like many other blues singers before her, she is a product of a succession of glee clubs and choral groups, the most notable of which was the Antioch Baptist Church. After graduation from the Girls High School in Brooklyn, New York in 1946. she was a night club singer for several years. Mildred first gained visibility when she recorded Doin' the Boogie Woogie with pianist Albert Ammons for Mercury on April 8, 1946. In 1947 she performed at Kinney Club, Newark, New Jersey. She sang I Ain't Mad At you at the Masonic Temple, Newark at a New Year’s Eve show in 1947. 

Hot Lips Page

Later, she worked and recorded with Hot Lips Page in 1951 and remained with the outfit for over a year, making innumerable raod trips and did many night club and theatre dates in New York, Philadelphia and Washington. In 1953 she joined organist Bill Doggett and his band where she enjoyed her greatest recording success with "No More In Life"" which sold in excess of 100,000 copies. Once during her club performance with the Doggett Trio, she was constantly shouted at and insulted by two hecklers. Mildred walked off the stage wordless in the middle of the song and quickly dealt with the two cheeky men. With the help of grabs she learned from her brother, who was then serving Uncle Sam in the Marines, she knocked the rioters to the ground and pacified them completely. Then she handed them over to the care of the club's security.

                                 

A friend from Mildred's school days Hortense Allen, produced shows at Club Harlem, near corner Arctic and Kentucky Avenues, Atlantic City, New Jersey, commencing 23 June 1955, featuring Mildred Anderson and Jimmy Tyler. Club Harlem was owned by Leroy Williams. In July 1955 "Jet" reported that Mildred and Baltimore bandleader Arthur Garner were exchanging wedding vows in front of ringsiders at the Club Harlem where she was working, but then Mildred battled serious health complications for four long years, but by April 1960, she was completely healthy and announced hers comeback in great singing form through the press.By this time, she had already prepared for release her solo debut album, Person To Person (Prestige-Bluesville Records), on which she was accompanied by tenor saxophonist Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis's band, including Shirley Scott on organ. It was recorded in a single day on January 22, 1960, produced by Esmond Edwards at the famous Englewood Cliffs Studios, and behind the mixing desk sat none other than the owner of the studio, the famous sound engineer Rudy Van Gelder.

In September 1960, Mildred enters Rudy Van Gelder's New Jersey studio kingdom for the second time. Backed by an Al Sears group, under the producer supervision of Ozzie Cadena, recordings were made for Mildred's second, and unfortunately also last, solo LP No More In Life (1961, Prestige-Bluesville Records). Mildred and Hortense worked together at the Key Club, 1325 Washington Street, Minneapolis, Minnesota during April 1961, backed by Gene "Bowlegs" Miller and his band. In April 1961, she appears in Minneapolis. Accompanied by Gene Miller's orchestra, she sings on the stage of the local Key Club. Five months later, she married Philadelphia businessman Bob Freeman.

In July 1962 Mildred gave a concert in Montreal and finished the performance with big problems. She lost her voice and had to withdraw from the music industry. At the end of 1970, having recovered her voice, accepts an invitation to perform as a guest at Cyrus Scott’s Sahara Supper Club, Philadelphia. After this she faded into obscurity--in fact, into oblivion. I was unable to gather more information including dates of birth and possible death, but her former partner, bandleader Arthur Garner, died in 2011 surrounded by the loving care of his five children and several grandchildren. Whether any of the children were the fruit of their relationship with Mildred is again unclear.

(Patchy information edited from Blues Encyclopedia, Album liner notes, cernejpudink.cz & Wikipedia)

Graham Townsend born June 16, 1942

Graham (Craig) Townsend was born in Toronto, his father, Fred (1900-1981) was Don Messer's square dance caller for many years. Visually impaired from childhood, Graham Townsend was raised in the Ottawa Valley community of Buckingham, Quebec, where he began to play violin as a child and absorbed the Irish, French and Scottish fiddle music of the Ottawa Valley that would later mould him into a prolific composer of over 400 tunes and a musician with a repertoire of nearly 4,000 fiddle tunes. Returning to Toronto, he won a CNE '30 and under' fiddling competition at the age of nine and subsequently learned repertoire and technique there from the Irish fiddlers Tom McQuestion and Billy Crawford.

In his teens Townsend began to perform on tour and on CBC TV with Don Messer and made his first records for Rodeo. Having placed third in the open class of the Canadian Open Old Time Fiddlers Contest at the age of 11, he won the event in 1963 and annually 1968-70 before retiring from competition. He later appeared on many occasions as a guest artist on CBC broadcasts of the contest. In 1963 he made the first of many tours sponsored by the CBC in conjunction with the federal departments of Defence or External Affairs. 

He performed in Germany, France, and Italy (1963, 1964), Cyprus (1967), England and Jersey (1981), Australia (1982, in a command performance for Elizabeth II at the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane; 1983; and for Expo 88), and East Germany (1984). He also travelled frequently to the Canadian north under the network's auspices. He toured in 1984 in Scotland, and appeared four times 1985-91 at the Shetland [Islands] Folk Festival. Several tours were with his second wife, Eleanor, whom he married in 1973.

                                  

He played in the California and Toronto-produced 1964 show Star Route, which ran for 36 weeks. Townsend lived 1964-7 in Ottawa where he succeeded Ward Allen in the Happy Wanderers on CFRA radio and CJOH-TV. Based again in Toronto until 1991, and thereafter in Barrie, Ont, he continued to appear on TV with Messer, and as a frequent guest on the Family Brown, Tommy Hunter, and Ronnie Prophet shows and on CBC Halifax TV's 'Up Home Tonight'. In 1991 he became a regular on MC [Mid-Canada] TV's 'That Country Feeling,' produced in Sudbury, Ont. 

Townsend performed at Canadian and US fairs and fiddling events, toured in 1984 in Scotland, and appeared four times 1985-91 at the Shetland [Islands] Folk Festival. He also appeared with Wilf Carter on several Canadian tours, including the singer's last in 1991. Townsend performed with a Don Messer Tribute show (1997-8), and at various festivals until shortly before his death.

Townsend studied Canada's fiddling traditions closely and can be heard playing in a variety of regional and ethnic styles on Classics of Irish, Scottish, and French Canadian Fiddling (1976, Rounder 7007) and The Great Canadian Fiddle (1977, Springwater S-6). He made some 40 albums by 1991 for Banff (eg, I Like Don Messer, SBS-5306, among nine others), Point (including Old Time Fiddle Favourites of Ward Allen, PS-328, and Harvest Home, PS-357, the latter with members of Messers' Islanders), Caprice, Marathon, Rounder, Audat, Condor, and Goodtime. In 1990 Silver Eagle issued Townsend's first CD, 100 Fiddle Hits - 35th Anniversary Album (SED-10962). Graham Townsend - Still Going Strong (Holborne/Rodeo 8044) followed in 1997, and Country Licks and All that Jazz in 1997 (Margaree Sound 6397201, recorded in 1982).

Townsend recorded some 200 of his 400 fiddle tunes. His best-known pieces include Royal Princess Two Step, Rocking Chair Jake, Debbie's Waltz, Maytime Swing, Black Jack Whiskey, My Dungannon Sweetheart, Swinging in the 80s, and Ice on the Road. His compositions have been recorded by Natalie MacMaster and April Verch. Townsend also recorded as a mandolinist (Mandolin Favorites, Cheyenne 89003) and as a pianist (accompanying the fiddler Joe Loutchan of Whitehorse on Fiddler on the Loose, a CBC Northern Services broadcast LP). He appeared as fiddler on recordings by Carroll Baker, Stompin' Tom Conners, Dolly Parton, Fred Penner, Raffi, Sharon, Lois & Bram, Sneezy Waters, and others.

Graham & Elanor Townsend

Townsend helped establish the Ontario Old Time Fiddlers Association. He was inducted into the US Fiddlers Hall of Fame at Oceola, NY, in 1982, the Ottawa Valley Country Music Hall of Fame in 1990, and the Canadian National Fiddling Hall of Fame in 1998. He was nominated for a Juno award for instrumental artist of the year in 1991, received a 1993 Porcupine Award (jointly with Eleanor), and a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Canadian Grandmasters Fiddling Championships in 1998, but by the end of that year he had died from cancer on December 3, 1998, in Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Only weeks later, on December 31, 1998, his wife Eleanor Townsend lost her life following a house fire at their home.

(Edited from the Canadian Encyclopedia, Wikipedia & CMA Ontario) 

Rhetta Hughes born June 15, 1939

Rhetta Hughes (June 15, 1939 – June 3, 2019) was an American soul singer and musical theatre actress.

Hughes was born in Dallas, Texas. Although she sang from a young age into adulthood in the choir of a Baptist church in her hometown, she had no aspirations to be a professional singer and had been employed for five years as a nurse at Parkland Memorial Hospital in 1963 when an impromptu vocal performance at the local club where her close friend Tennyson Stephens played piano caused the club's managers to hire her. Established as a top local lounge act, Hughes and Stephens were eventually spotted in a Dallas club by Al Williams - leader of the Four Step Brothers dance troupe - who signed as the duo's manager successfully transferring them to the Chicago nightclub circuit.

In 1965 Hughes made her recording debut with an album focused on standards - which billed Hughes as Rheta Hughes and featured Tennyson Stephens - entitled Introducing An Electrifying New Star recorded with producer Ralph Bass for Columbia Records, who would release three singles by Hughes in 1967-68 all produced by Howard Roberts (Hughes' Columbia recording sessions all took place in New York City). Continuing to play nightclubs, Hughes was discovered by Bill Cosby who caught her act at the Redd Foxx Club in Los Angeles, with Hughes resultantly being signed to Tetragrammaton Records, the label Cosby had recently co-founded. After her label debut: "You're Doing It With Her - When It Should Be Me", almost reached the R&B Top 40 in the autumn of 1968. Hughes scored her career record with a mid-tempo R&B rendition of the Doors hit "Light My Fire" which reached #36 on the Billboard R&B chart in February 1969 with the track just falling short of the Billboard Hot 100 peaking at #102 on the "Bubbling Under..." chart (Record World, whose R&B chart afforded Hughes' "Light My Fire" a #26 peak, ranked the track in its 100 Top Pops singles chart with a peak of #78). Hughes' two Tetragammraton singles were included on a 1969 album release entitled Re-Light My Fire from which two further singles were released without charting.

                                  

Hughes had no further releases on Tetragammraton before the label folded in 1971 but was featured on the track "Mother's Prayer" on the 1971 album As Serious as a Heart-Attack by Melvin Van Peebles, with Hughes also accruing an impressive résumé as a session singer with her vocalizing on the 1974 #1 Roberta Flack hit "Feel Like Makin' Love" earning Hughes a gold record. 

Hughes session work résumé also includes the Van Dyke Parks album Discover America (1972), the Buffy Sainte-Marie album Moonshot (1972), the 1973 self-titled album by Brenda Patterson, the Bette Midler album Songs for the New Depression (1976), the 1976 self-titled album by Essra Mohawk and the Bobby Rydell album Born With a Smile (1976): a chorale member on the 1976 album Speak No Evil by Buddy Rich & the Big Band Machine, Hughes also vocalized on the track "The Circle" on the 1977 album Loading Zone (it) by guitarist Roy Buchanan. In the early 1970s Hughes branched out into acting, her first evident credit being the 1971 blaxploitation film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song which was created by Melvin Van Peebles. 

Van Peebles next cast her as Earnestine in his 1972 musical Don't Play Us Cheap; a production which marked Hughes debut on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The musical was subsequently adapted into a 1973 film with Rhetta reprising her role from the stage musical. Hughes had her second Broadway tenure in the musical Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope in which she impressed audience-member Harry Belafonte: subsequent to performing in Paul Sills' stage adaptation of Ovid's Metamorphoses at the 1973 Festival dei Due Mondi in Umbria Hughes was recruited by Belafonte to serve as second vocalist on his six-month North American tour in 1974, and then again on his eight-month global tour in 1976.

After some time away from performing tending her ailing mother in Dallas, Hughes led the national touring company of Bubbling Brown Sugar from July 1977 to May 1978. Also in 1978 an uncredited Hughes was featured in the chorale for the 1978 film musical The Wiz. In March 1979 Hughes was cast as second lead in an upcoming Broadway show Got Tu Go Disco - highly touted as "the first disco musical" - with Hughes casting resulting in her being signed as a recording artist by disco-oriented Aria Productions whose leader Kenny Lehman was Got Tu...'s musical director/supervisor. Although Got Tu... would not noticeably last beyond its June 1979 opening Lehman would in fact produce Hughes' third album: Starpiece, released in 1980, which year also saw Hughes co-starring in the original off-Broadway musical Paris Lights as Josephine Baker.

Throughout the 80's Hughes featured in on and off Broadway musicals including Black Nativity and Raisin (1981), Dreamgirls, Amen Corner (1983). Also in 1983 Hughes recorded two dance tracks for Kenny Lehman's Aria Productions: "Angel Man (G.A.)" and "Crisis", which ranked on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart with respective peaks of #1 and #20, with "Angel Man" becoming a minor R&B chart hit (#88).And Hughes would reprise her Black Nativity role when that musical was presented before Pope John Paul II in a December 23, 1983 performance in Vatican City. In May 1988 Hughes appeared in the Fox Theatre (Atlanta) premiere production Moms. Hughes continued to accrue occasional screen credits with a co-starring role in the 1985 exploitation film Tenement and a supporting role in the mainstream 1986 movie A Killing Affair, and also guest roles on the TV series Knightwatch and Law & Order in respectively 1988 and 1991.

In the summer of 1991 Hughes accepted an offer to co-star as Josephine Baker's mother in a new Dutch stage musical  whose director: Billy Wilson, had worked (as choreographer) with Hughes in the 1977-78 national tour of Bubbling Brown Sugar: Josephine: the Musical began its premiere run at the Luxor Theatre, Rotterdam on September 19, 1991 with subsequent engagements in other European venues. Hughes remained in the Netherlands for several years residing in Amsterdam and appearing in local musical stage productions including Bubbling Brown Sugar (1993) and the gospel music revue The Glory of Gospel (1996), being featured on the cast albums for the latter two productions as she had been with Josephine. In 2008 Hughes returned to session singing for the album Subway Silence by Dutch vocalist Giovanca.

In later years Hughes returned to Dallas, where she was a full time carer of her mother. She died there on June 3, 2019, at the age of 79.

(Edited from Wikipedia)

Garland Green born June 14, 1942

 Garland Green (born Garfield Green Jr.; June 14, 1942 – February 2026) was an American soul singer and pianist.

Born in Dunleith, Mississippi, United States on June 14, 1942, Green was the tenth child of eleven in his family. He lived in Mississippi until 1958 when he moved to Chicago. While working and attending Englewood High, he sang on weekends, and one day while singing in a pool room, he was overheard by Argia B. Collins, a local owner of a barbeque chain. Collins agreed to bankroll Green's attendance at the Chicago Conservatory of Music, where Green studied voice and piano, and played in local bars and clubs. Green and Joshie Jo Armstead, a composer and lyricist from Yazoo County, Mississippi were married in Chicago in 1965 but it was short lived as they divorced two years later. She was a member of the Ikettes of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue.

In 1967, Green won a local talent show at a club called the Trocadero. His prize was a concert opening for Lou Rawls and Earl Hines at the Sutherland Lounge. In the audience was Mel Collins, and his wife Joshie Jo Armstead, who was a songwriter who had written tunes with Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson prior to the couple joining Motown. The couple arranged for Green to do a recording session in Detroit and released the result as a single on their label, Gamma Records, a song called "Girl I Love You", written by Shelley Fisher. It sold well locally and was picked up by MCA subsidiary, Revue Records for national distribution. Revue released three further singles from Green who then moved to MCA's main label, Uni Records.

                                  

In 1969, "Jealous Kind of Fella" became a major national success, reaching No. 5 in the Billboard R&B chart, No. 2 in the Cashbox soul chart, and No. 24 in Canada. Written by Green, R. Browner, M. Dollinson and Jo Armstead, the record was released in the US in August 1969. It sold a million copies by March 1971. Uni released an album from Green, but the follow-up single did not sell well and Green eventually left MCA, also parting company with Armstead. He then signed with Atlantic Records subsidiary, Cotillion Records, which released five singles from Garland, but only one proved a real success, "Plain and Simple Girl". Produced and arranged by Donny Hathaway, this reached the R&B Top 20.

Garland with Marvin Gaye

Moving on to Spring Records in 1973, Green recorded five more singles, some of which charted modestly, notably "Let the Good Times Roll" (not the Shirley and Lee song) and "Bumpin' and Stompin'." His recording for the label, "Just What The Doctor Ordered", remained unissued until 1990, when it was included on a compilation album of his Spring singles on the UK label, Ace/Kent. A move then to RCA Records resulted in three singles and an album, produced by the Los Angeles, California producer/singer Leon Haywood.Sadly, RCA didn't promote the album well and nothing significant resulted from the association. After this he didn't record again for nearly seven years.

In 1979, Green moved to California, and eventually signed with a small independent label, Ocean-Front Records for an album produced by Lamont Dozier and Arleen Schesel, the latter of whom Green later married. The album featured a re-worked version of a major hit for Dozier 10 years earlier, "Trying to Hold on to My Woman". When the label closed, Green continued to record and self-release. In 2011, Green signed a deal for a brand new album with Special Soul Music, a new division of the label CDS Records. The album, entitled I Should've Been The One, was released February 2012. It was his first album of new material in 29 years. In 2013 he received the Denise La Salle Recording For Excellence Award at the the Jus Blues Foundation Awards in Memphis, Tennessee.

Despite his million selling “Jealous Kind of Fellow” Garland Green never achieved great success in the music business. For reasons that are not entirely clear, much of his work was censored by some top musical professionals at the time including the composer team Nicholas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, and Donnie Hathaway with whom he worked in the 1970s.

Green's death at the age of 83 was announced on February 9, 2026.

(Edited from Wikipedia & Blackpast.org)

Frank Strozier born June 13, 1937

Frank R. Strozier Jr. (born June 13, 1937) is a jazz alto saxophonist, flutist, pianist and composer whose contributions remain insufficiently known and appreciated by the wider jazz community.

Strozier was born in Memphis, Tennessee, where he learned to play piano. In 1954, after high school, he moved to Chicago, where he studied clarinet at the Chicago Conservatory of Music and performed with other Memphis musicians such as Harold Mabern, George Coleman, and Booker Little, and also played with Walter Perkins group MJT+3 (recording in 1959-60) and led sessions for Vee-Jay Records during that period.

                              

In 1959 he moved to New York, where he appeared with Miles Davis for a brief period n 1963 (alongside Hank Mobley and George Coleman) and with Roy Haynes's quartet. After six years in Los Angeles, during which he performed with Chet Baker (recording in 1965) and groups led by Shelly Manne (1965-c1967) and Don Ellis (1968), he returned to New York in 1971. 

He joined the Jazz Contemporaries, led by drummer Keno Duke (recording in 1974), and the New York Jazz Repertory Company. He recorded as a leader for Trident (1972) and Steeple Chase (1976-1977) and also played with Horace Parlan (1977). Strozier was a dynamic and committed performer with a blues-based style that enlivened any context in which he appeared. His tone and phrasing had a biting edge reminiscent of Jackie McLean's playing.

He played  and recorded with Woody Shaw in 1978, and with Louis Hayes and Stafford James in 1979. Frustrated with his lack of work, Strozier dropped out of the music scene by the mid-1980s. On March 31, 1990, he made his piano debut in a trio setting at Weill Recital Hall in New York which was favourably reviewed by a critic in Cadence Magazine. But since then, little has been heard of Strozier who left music to become a teacher of math and/or science in schools in Westchester County, New York.

(Limited information edited from New Grove Dictionary of Music, Wikipedia & AllMusic)

Della Griffin born June 12, 1922

Della Griffin (born June 12, 1922 – died August 9, 2022) was an amazing American jazz singer and drummer. She was also known as Della Simpson. Della was part of two of the very first all-girl R&B music groups in the 1950s: The Enchanters and The Dell-Tones.

Della Griffin was born in Newberry, South Carolina, on June 12, 1922. She was the nineteenth of twenty children! Later, she moved to New York City and grew up there. Della loved music from a young age. She really looked up to famous musicians like Count Basie, Charlie Barnet, and especially Billie Holiday. Della started singing when she was just 12 years old. Singing was her biggest passion, but she was also great at playing the drums, alto saxophone, and piano. After finishing Jamaica High School in Queens, New York, in 1943, Della began singing professionally.

In 1950, Della and her friend Frances Kelley decided to start a singing group. They knew each other from working together in a factory. They soon added Pearl Brice, Della's childhood friend, and Rachel Gist, a singer from Harlem. Their friend Chris Townes helped them a lot. He became their teacher, helped arrange their songs, played piano, and wrote music for them. The group performed in small clubs for about a year. In 1951, Della invited Jerry Blaine, who owned Jubilee Records, to hear them. He was so impressed that he signed them the very next day! Their first songs included "Today is Your Birthday" and "How Could You Break My Heart." In January 1952, Jubilee released The Enchanters' first record. The group started touring the country and became very popular. Later that year, Rachel Gist and Pearl Brice left the group.

Della and Frances Kelley wanted to keep making music. They found two new members, Gloria Alleyne and Sherry Gary. With these new singers, the group changed its name to The Dell-Tones. They named it after Della Griffin because she was the lead singer and also the group's drummer. Della Griffin was actually the first female drummer in a well-known music group! Della's first husband, Jimmy Simpson, managed the group. He helped them get a recording deal with Coral's Brunswick company. In 1953, they recorded "Yours Alone" and "My Hearts on Fire." When these songs didn't get much attention, The Dell-Tones moved to Rainbow records. There, they recorded "I'm Not in Love With You" and "Little Short Daddy." The group then went on the "Night Train Tour" with Jimmy Forrest. After this, Frances Kelley, Gloria Alleyne, and Sherry Gary left. 

New members Algie Willie, Shirley Bunnie Foy, and Renee Stewart joined. The Dell-Tones then signed with Baton records and recorded songs like "Don't Be Long" and "Baby Say You Love Me."  In 1955, The Dell-Tones went on a tour of Canada. Later, Gloria Bell and Chris Townes left the group. The Dell-Tones then joined forces with Sonny Til and his group The Orioles. This new, bigger group included Della Griffin, Sonny Til, Della's second husband Paul Griffin, and many other talented musicians. They performed in clubs in New York City and recorded "Voices of Love" and "I'm so Lonely" in 1957. After this, The Dell-Tones slowly stopped performing together, and Della began her solo career.

                 Here's "My Melancholy Baby" from above album.

                                  

Della Griffin was married three times. Her husbands were Jimmy Simpson, Paul Griffin (a pianist), and Gene Walker (a saxophone player). Over the years, she toured and performed with many famous artists like Jimmy Forrest, Sonny Stitt, Benny Green, Illinois Jacquet, and her sister-in-law, Etta Jones. After The Dell-Tones, Della's husband at the time, Paul Griffin, encouraged her to take a break to focus on their family. After their marriage ended, Della started performing again in New York City clubs.

In 1973, Griffin opened at Harlem's Blue Book Club. It became a steady gig for 14 years, ending only when Griffin was injured in a car accident. Frequent comparisons to Billie Holiday were both a blessing and a frustration -- a frustration because she was persistently asked by audiences to sing the songs Holiday sang. Limited in her ability to consistently do her own stuff, Griffin left the business. Returning in the '80s, she worked with both Etta Jones and Irene Reid, recording with Jones. 

This work led to two albums for Muse Records, I'll Get By and Travelin' Light, both produced by Houston Person. When Muse folded, Griffin followed many of that label's performers to the newly formed HighNote-Savant. Her first album for Savant, also produced by Person and which he appeared on, The Very Thought of You, came out in 1998. That same year, Griffin was invited to Finland to appear at one of that country's major jazz festivals. Griffin settled in New York and performed regularly at clubs and other jazz events. 

In 2005, Della Griffin and The Enchanters performed as the main act at a show organized by the UGHA (United Group Harmony Association). The audience loved her performance. Della Griffin lived in New Rochelle, New York, where her foster children would visit her every day. She passed away in New York City on August 9, 2022, at the age of 100.

(Edited from Wikipedia & AllMusic)