“The only thing better than singing is more singing,” Ella Fitzgerald said. She was always bursting with joy. Yet, her childhood was so miserable it inspired many blues artist for a lifetime. Firstly, after being abused by her stepfather, she entertained passers-by as a street orphan and ran errands for a brothel. And when she, as a chubby teenager, auditioned for bandleader Chick Webb, she was scorned for her less than pleasing looks… until she started singing. With the Songbook series she made in the late 1950s featuring works from great American songwriters, she grew out to be the undisputed First Lady of Song.
An hour of Ella Fitzgerald.