Donna Hightower

Donna Hightower was born in Caruthersville, Missouri on December 28, 1926, and is the oldest of nine children. Her family was typical of many poor Southern African-American sharecropping families and she remembers spending many days working as a field hand for $1 a day, picking cotton. Her father didn’t believe in education so she had very little formal schooling until much later in her life. She remembers getting in trouble for listening to radio programs and daydreaming of life better than what she saw around her. Being very determined to get out of that lifestyle, she married early and had two children. Since her first husband was in the military, they moved often and called many cities “home” for short periods of time, including St. Louis, Missouri and Gary, Indiana. After their divorce in the late 1940’s, she moved to Chicago, Illinois and lived with her cousin. She was first discovered in 1951 while working as a cook in Chicago. Bob Tilman, a reporter for the “Chicago Defender” was in the diner having lunch, when he commented to a waitress that he really liked the vocalist singing "Star Dust." He asked if she would turn up the radio so that he could hear the orchestra's arrangement. The waitress looked confused, so he repeated his request again. Finally, she told the reporter that they didn't have a radio and said, "oh, that's just Donna...she drives us crazy with her singing all the time!" Tillman took Hightower around and introduced her to club owners and she soon got regular bookings fronting bands at the Strand Hotel Lounge, the Crown Propellor and other South Side hotspots. She came to the attention of Decca Records, which signed her and suggested a name change. "They said it was too long and I said: 'Well, it's got the same number of letters as "Ella Fitzgerald" ', and they let it go." Hightower made a series of singles for Decca and RPM, and in 1958 she was working in New York .She toured the "chitlin circuit" with Louis Jordan and B.B. King at that time. She not only had range and power, but was equally compelling doing sentimental, soft ballads. She was backed by the orchestras of Horace Henderson and Maxwell Davis on the Decca and RPM material, respectively. The second phase of her career began in New York. Producer Dave Cavenaugh had set up a session for Dakota Staton, but when the sassy jazz-blues singer canceled, Cavenaugh scrambled for a replacement. He remembered a voice he heard on a demo that Peggy Lee emulated on a million-seller. Eventually, Hightower was tracked down in Brooklyn. "My boss at the publishing company called one morning and asked if I wanted to make a record for Capitol and I said: 'You bet!' " Hightower recalled. "He said: 'Then get yourself to the studio by noon.' " After taking the quickest shower of her life, Hightower made it in time for the sessions, featuring sax giant Ben Webster, which resulted in the critically acclaimed "Take One!" LP. Six months later came "Gee Baby, Ain't I Good To You", which led to the continent-changing 1959 booking at the Stork Club in London. Donna Hightower is still performing in her eighties. She was recently in Austin, Texas and in July 2005, she was the guest of honor of the IV Festival Internacional de Jazz in Spain, featuring her former tourmate B.B. King and others. Among her great hits, the most famous is probably “This World Today Is a Mess”, a single that sold 7 million copies in Europe. Her idols are Bessie Smith, Mildred Bailey, Lee Wiley, Ella Fitzgerald, Maxine Sullivan and Sarah Vaughan.