Anita O'Day

From a broken home in Chicago, Anita O'Day made her showbusiness beginnings as a dancer, leaving home at 14 to compete in the various "walk-a-thons" popular around America during the hardships of the 1930s. A meeting with drummer Don O'Day (who she married in 1937) encouraged her ambition to be a singer, at first with the Max Miller Quartet and then, in 1941, with Gene Krupa. She went on to work with Woody Herman and Stan Kenton when her unusually aggressive swing vocal style - which she attributed to a throat operation when she was young - established her as one of the most striking jazz singers of the era. Her signature tracks included How High The Moon, Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby and Key Largo as she became a popular festival attraction, appearing periodically with various jazz greats Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Oscar Peterson and Thelonious Monk. O'Day had a hit album with Anita O'Day Sings Jazz in 1952 but the following year served time in prison for heroin possession. She later appeared in the famous 1958 documentary Jazz On A Summer's Day and received further acclaim at the end of the decade on tour with Benny Goodman. Drug problems continued through the 1960s but she made a comeback at the 1970 Berlin Jazz Festival. She continued to play shows and make TV appearances - writing her autobiography High Times, Hard Times in 1981 - and died in 2007 at the age of 87.

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