SHOUT! Black Gospel Music Moments - Sarah Vaughan

The great Sarah Vaughan is one of the treasures of American music. From humble beginnings in Newark, winning the famed Apollo Theater’s Amateur Hour set up her time singing with Earl Hines’ Big Band, which featured the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. By the late 1940s, she was recording various solo projects with the top jazz, blues and pop artists in the country.

It was the sweet-voiced Vaughan who popularized songs like “That Lucky Old Sun,” “Black Coffee,” “My Funny Valentine,” “Whatever Lola Wants” and many, many more.

Before her death by cancer at age 66 in 1990, Vaughan was universally acclaimed as an American Master, with a list of awards and triumphs too long to mention here.

Fortunately for us, she recorded a handful of spirituals as well, including this gentle version of “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” with Ted Dale and His Orchestra in 1947.

I’m Robert Darden … “Shout! Black Gospel Music Moments” is produced by KWBU and the Black Gospel Music Preservation Program at Baylor University Libraries.

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