#87: Love Walked In by Dinah Washington
City: Ottawa, ON
Radio Station: CKOY
Peak Month: November 1960
Peak Position in Ottawa ~ #1
Peak position in Vancouver ~ #25
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #30
YouTube: “Love Walked In”
Lyrics: “Love Walked In”
Ruth Lee Jones was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1924. After her family moved to Chicago, she played piano for the choir in St. Luke’s Baptist Church while still in elementary school. She sang gospel music in church and played piano, directing her church choir in her teens and was a member of the Sallie Martin Gospel Singers. In 1939 when she was fifteen, she won an amateur contest at the Regal Theater in Chicago singing “I Can’t Face the Music”. By 1941–42, she was performing in such Chicago clubs as Dave’s Café and the Downbeat Room of the Sherman Hotel (with Fats Waller). She was playing at the Three Deuces, a jazz club, when a friend took her to hear Billie Holiday at the Garrick Stage Bar. Club owner Joe Sherman was so impressed with her singing of “I Understand”, – a hit that year on the pop chart for Jimmy Dorsey and on the R&B chart for Fats Waller – that he hired her. During her year at the Garrick—she sang upstairs while Holiday performed in the downstairs room—she acquired the name by which she became known. She credited Joe Sherman with suggesting the change from Ruth Jones, made before Lionel Hampton came to hear Dinah at the Garrick. Hampton’s visit brought an offer, and Washington worked as his female band vocalist after she had sung with the band for its opening at the Chicago Regal Theatre.