Annie Ross
| Annie Ross | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Annabelle Allan Short |
| Born |
25 July 1930 London, England, UK |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Singer and actress |
| Instruments | Vocals |
| Years active | 1937–present |
| Associated acts | Lambert, Hendricks & Ross |
| Website | www |
Annie Ross (born 25 July 1930) is a British-American singer and actress, best known as a member of the jazz vocal trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross.
She was born Annabelle Allan Short, in Mitcham, London, the daughter of Scottish vaudevillians John "Jack" Short and Mary Dalziel Short (née Allan). Her brother was entertainer Jimmy Logan. At the age of four, she traveled to New York by ship with her family; she later recalled that they "got the cheapest ticket, which was right in the bowels of the ship".
Shortly after arriving in the city, she won a token contract with MGM through a children's radio contest run by Paul Whiteman. She subsequently moved with her aunt Ella Logan to Los Angeles, and her mother, father and brother returned to Scotland. At the age of seven, she sang "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond" in Our Gang Follies of 1938, and played Judy Garland's character's sister in Presenting Lily Mars (1943). At the age of 14, she wrote the song "Let's Fly", which won a songwriting contest and was recorded by Johnny Mercer and The Pied Pipers.
At the end of tenth grade, she left school, changed her name to Annie Ross, and went to Europe, where she quickly established her singing career. She decided to change her surname to Ross on the plane trip to Prestwick; in a 2011 interview, she said, "My aunt was very fanciful and she said I had an Irish grandmother called Ross, so that's where that surname came from".
In 1952, Ross met Prestige Records owner , who asked her to write lyrics to a jazz solo, in a similar way to King Pleasure, a practice that would later be known as vocalese. The next day, she presented him with "Twisted", a treatment of saxophonist Wardell Gray's 1949 composition of the same name, a classic example of the genre. The song, first released on the 1952 album King Pleasure Sings/Annie Ross Sings, was an underground hit, and resulted in her winning Down Beat magazine's New Star award.
...
Wikipedia