Dinah Washington - The Queen Sings (4CD Box Set) (2002)

Dinah Washington recorded a stunning amount of material in her too-short career (when she died in Detroit in 1963 she was only 39 years old -- somehow she still managed to find time for seven marriages), most of it during her lengthy association with Mercury Records between 1948 and 1955. Washington seemingly tackled everything under the sun in the recording studio, cutting jazz, R&B, blues, and pop sides with an assortment of small groups, trios, sextets, and increasingly, toward the end of her life, with large orchestras, and if she seemed to be gradually fading into blander and sleeker arrangements as time went on, her voice always remained focused and coiled, and her bluesy phrasing has influenced far more singers than most folks realize.