WASHINGTON, DINAH (née RUTH JONES). Gospel/Jazz singer ( in Tuscaloosa, Alabama; in Detroit, Michigan). Her family moved to Chicago, Illinois, when she was a child. She sang in church choirs and became a choir director at an early age. She began singing popular music during her high-school years; at the age of fifteen she won a talent-show contest at the local Regal Theater and thereafter sang professionally in local nightclubs. The next year,...