Ruth Lee Jones (29 August 1924 – 14 December 1963), was born in Tuscaloosa, AL and performed under the stage name Dinah Washington. She sang jazz, blues and pop music with a number of bands and recorded from the 1940s through her death in 1963.

She began singing in church with her mother on the south side of Chicago in the late 1930s. In 1943, Washington learned that Billie Holiday would be performing at the Garrick Stage Lounge in Chicago, and she managed to get a job there with the house band. Lionel Hampton came in one night to see Holiday perform and was impressed with Washington. He took her on the road with his band and she was their singer for the next three years. She left the band in 1946 to begin her solo career and several of her songs were top ten R&B hits.

Washington was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 1986 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.