Dakota Staton, Vocal jazz Artist

Dakota Staton (June 3, 1930 – April 10, 2007)

Dakota Staton, (pronounced STAY-ton) was a highly respected jazz, soul and blues singer known for her rich vocals and sassy style. In 1957 Dakota burst onto the music scene with her first full-length album, “The Late, Late Show,” – the title track becoming her most famous hit song. Her other well-known songs include “Broadway” and “My Funny Valentine,” all from the same album, and “What Do You Know About Love?,” which she recorded earlier as a single. She was also known by the Muslim name Aliyah Rabia for a period due to her conversion to Islam as interpreted by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

Born: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

Genre: Jazz, R&B, Soul, Blues

Dakota Staton was born in the Homewood neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she attended George Westinghouse High School and studied music at the Filion School of Music in Pittsburgh. Later she performed regularly in the Hill District, a jazz hotspot, as a vocalist with the Joe Westray Orchestra, a popular Pittsburgh orchestra. She next spent several years in the nightclub circuit in such cities as Detroit, Indianapolis, Cleveland and St. Louis. While in New York, she was noticed singing at a Harlem nightclub called the Baby Grand by Dave Cavanaugh, a producer for Capitol Records. She was signed and released several singles, her success leading her to win Down Beat magazine’s “Most Promising Newcomer” award in 1955. In 1958, Staton wed Talib Dawud, a black Antigua-born Ahmadi Muslim, a jazz trumpeter and noted critic of Elijah Muhammad. She subsequently converted to Islam and used the name Aliyah Rabia for some time. The marriage ultimately ended in divorce.

She released several critically acclaimed albums in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including: The Late, Late Show (1957), whose title track was her biggest hit, “In the Night” (1958), a collaboration with pianist George Shearing, “Dynamic” (1958) and “Dakota at Storyville” (1962), a live album recorded at the Storyville jazz club in Boston. In the mid-1960s Staton moved to England, where she recorded the album “Dakota ′67”. Returning to the US in the early 1970s, she continued to record semi-regularly, her recordings taking an increasingly strong gospel and blues influence.

Over her career, Dakota Staton perform with jazz musicians and artists such as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, George Shearing, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge and Gene Krupa. Glamour was her middle name. She wore bouffant hair styles, sheathed her voluptuous figure in beaded gowns and topped her ensembles with a mink shawls and stoles.

Along with vocalists Etta Jones, Abbey Lincoln and Annie Ross, Dakota Staton’s career was chronicled in a 2000 documentary called “Jazz Women.”

In 2001, Pittsburgh honored Dakota Staton by inducting her into the Gallery of Stars at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater in East Liberty and gave her a star on the walk of fame in front of the theater.

Dakota Staton suffered a stroke in 1999, after which her health deteriorated. In 2007, she died at the age 76 in New York City, leaving a legacy of more than 30 jazz recordings.

Biographical information courtesy of Wiki; for more reading see link below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_Staton