Toni Lynn Washington

Rate It! (0 ratings)
  • Born: Southern Pines, NC
  • Years Active: 1990s, 2000s

Albums

Biography All Music Guide Wikipedia

All Music Guide:

Boston-based blues singer Toni Lynn Washington recorded and released Blues at Midnight for the Tone-Cool subsidiary of Rounder Records in 1995. Washington is considered Boston's "queen of the blues,'' where she has a long and storied history on the club scene.

Raised in a procession of gospel choirs in Southern Pines, North Carolina, Washington performed with classic R&B artists like Sam and Dave and Jackie Wilson throughout the South in her youth. Washington also made USO tours of the U.S. and Asia in the 1960s and recorded the Top 50 single "Dear Diary" for the New Orleans-based Conti label, then a subsidiary of Atlantic Records.

After two decades off the road and out of the recording studio, Washington returned to performing in 1992 with a ten-piece band. On her debut for Tone-Cool, Blues at Midnight, Washington comes across best as an interpreter: she tackles B.B. King's "Ask Me No Questions," Jimmy Reed's "Ain't That Loving You Baby,'' and a tune popularized by Jimmy Rushing and the Basie Orchestra and T-Bone Walker, "Evening.''

It's My Turn Now followed in 1997, and in early 2000, Washington returned with Good Things.

Wikipedia:

Toni Lynn Washington (born Dorothy Kearns, December 6, 1937, Southern Pines, North Carolina) is an American blues singer.

Musical career

She took to music at an early age, singing with her school and church choirs.

She has had seven Blues Music Award nominations. Washington received the 1999 Boston Blues Festival Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2003 she released her fourth CD since 1997, and her first on the NorthernBlues label.

Albums

Blues at Midnight (1995, Tone-Cool Records, a Rounder Records subsidiary)It's My Turn Now (1997, Tone-Cool Records)Good Things (2000, Tone-Cool Records)Been So Long (2003, NorthernBlues Music)

Main band members

Keyboards: Bruce BearsGuitar: Duke Robillard, Kevin Belz, and Mike NullSaxophone: Chuck Langford, Gordon Beadle, and Doug JamesTrumpet: Scott ArudaDrums: Dave Jamrog and Mark TexeiraBass: Jesse Williams, Sven Larson and Steve CuocoProducers: Duke Robillard and Bruce Bears

Blues Music Award nominations

2003, 2004 and 2005 "Soul-Blues Female Performer of the Year"Her previous albums for "Album of the Year"