Anita O'Day › Similar Artists

Carmen McRae - 100% match to Anita O'Day

8 April 1920, New York City, New York, USA, d. 10 November 1994, Beverly Hills, California, USA. One of the best American jazz singers, McRae was also an accomplished pianist and songwriter. Early in her career she sang with bands led by Benny Carter, Mercer Ellington, Charlie Barnet and Count Basie (sometimes under the name of Carmen Clarke, from her brief marriage to Kenny Read more

Lena Horne - 79% match to Anita O'Day

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne, 30 June 1917, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. Horne is a dynamic performer, of striking appearance and elegant style. The daughter of an actress and a hotel operator, she was brought up mainly by her paternal grandmother, Cora Calhoun Horne. She made her professional debut at the age of 16 as a singer in the chorus at Harlem’s Cotton Clu Read more

Blossom Dearie - 77% match to Anita O'Day

28 April 1928, East Durham, New York, USA. A singer, pianist and songwriter, with a ‘wispy, little-girlish’ voice, Dearie is regarded as one of the great supper club singers. Her father was of Scottish and Irish descent; her mother emigrated from Oslo, Norway. Dearie is said to have been given her unusual first name after a neighbour brought peach blossoms to her h Read more

June Christy - 74% match to Anita O'Day

Shirley Luster, 20 November 1925, Springfield, Illinois, USA, d. 21 June 1990, Sherman Oaks, California, USA. Christy first came to prominence with the bands of Boyd Raeburn and Stan Kenton, although her chirpy singing style sometimes sat oddly with the earnestly progressive experiments of her employers. Her bright, bubbling personality glowed through her performances and s Read more

Betty Carter - 64% match to Anita O'Day

Lillie Mae Jones, 16 May 1929, Flint, Michigan, USA, d. 26 September 1998, New York City, New York, USA. Growing up in Detroit, Carter sang with touring jazzmen, including Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. In her late teens, she joined Lionel Hampton, using the stage name Lorene Carter. With Hampton she enjoyed a love-hate relationship; he would regularly fire her only to Read more

Sarah Vaughan - 64% match to Anita O'Day

Sarah Lois Vaughan, 27 March 1924, Newark, New Jersey, USA, d. 3 April 1990, Los Angeles, California, USA. Although she was not born into an especially musical home environment (her father was a carpenter and her mother worked in a laundry), the young Sarah Vaughan had plenty of contact with music-making. As well as taking piano lessons for nearly 10 years, she sang in her c Read more

Shirley Horn - 64% match to Anita O'Day

1 May 1934, Washington, DC, USA, d. 20 October 2005, Cheverly, Maryland, USA. After studying piano formally, Horn continued her musical education at Howard University. She began leading her own group in the mid-50s, and in the early 60s recorded several sessions for Mercury Records, often in company with front-rank bop musicians. For some years Horn spent much of her time in Read more

Chris Connor - 58% match to Anita O'Day

8 November 1927, Kansas City, Missouri, USA. After singing publicly while still at school, Connor worked with the bands of Claude Thornhill, where she was a member of the vocal group, the Snowflakes, and Herbie Fields in the late 40s and early 50s. Audibly influenced by Anita O’Day, Connor quickly developed her own recognizable style and built a localized reputation. Ha Read more

Maxine Sullivan - 53% match to Anita O'Day

Marietta Williams, 13 May 1911, Homestead, Pennsylvania, USA, d. 7 April 1987, New York City, New York, USA. Sullivan began singing in and around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, before travelling to New York in 1937. She joined the Claude Thornhill band and made a hugely successful record of ‘Loch Lomond’. The popularity of this recording led to her making several more j Read more

Dinah Washington - 51% match to Anita O'Day

Ruth Lee Jones, 29 August 1924, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA, d. 14 December 1963, Detroit, Michigan, USA. Raised in Chicago, Dinah Washington first sang in church choirs for which she also played piano. She then worked in local clubs, where she was heard by Lionel Hampton, who promptly hired her. She was with Hampton from 1943-46, recording hits with ‘Evil Gal Blues’, Read more

Etta Jones - 51% match to Anita O'Day

25 November 1928, Aiken, South Carolina, USA, d. 16 October 2001, Mount Vernon, New York, USA. By the time she began singing professionally, Jones was living in New York. She worked with Buddy Johnson, then Pete Johnson, J.C. Heard and Earl Hines. She also worjked with her husband Gerald Wilson until they divorced in the early 50s. From the early 50s she often worked as a s Read more

Keely Smith - 51% match to Anita O'Day

Dorothy Jaqueline Keely Smith, 9 March 1932, Norfolk, Virginia, USA. A jazzy singer most famous for her work with her husband, band leader Louis Prima. Smith made her professional debut with Prima in 1949, and the couple were married in July 1953. As well as her solo spots with the big band, she frequently duetted with Prima on stylized versions of well-known songs. In 1958, Read more

Ernestine Anderson - 50% match to Anita O'Day

11 November 1928, Houston, Texas, USA. Raised in Seattle, Anderson has been singing professionally since her mid-teens. She worked extensively with R&B bands in the 40s, including those led by Russell Jacquet and Johnny Otis. A year with Lionel Hampton in the early 50s and a Scandinavian tour with bop trumpeter Rolf Ericson broadened her repertoire, but she remained well Read more

Dorothy Dandridge - 48% match to Anita O'Day

Nancy Wilson - 46% match to Anita O'Day

20 February 1937, Chillicothe, Ohio, USA. Wilson began singing in clubs in and around Columbus, Ohio. She attracted attention among jazz musicians, made her first records in 1956, and in the late 50s toured with a band led by Rusty Bryant. At the end of the decade she sang with George Shearing, with whom she recorded, and Cannonball Adderley. It was at Adderley’s insist Read more