Donna Drake was born in Wheeling, West Virginia and came to Detroit at the age of 3. The eldest of four daughters, she attended Northern High School in Detroit, where she first sang with the school choir and participated in variety shows with fellow schoolmates Paul Chambers, Donald Byrd, and Barry Harris. Around 1952, after having won a talent show in Windsor, Ontario, she received a contract on a television show, where she sang supported by the Kenny Burrell Quartet. As she recalls it, this was the moment that inspired her to become a professional singer. We don’t know much about her artistic career, although it is said that for a time she worked with the great Charlie Parker. She recorded her only album in 1968 —DONNA SINGS DINAH— a kind of homage where she reimagined some of the songs made famous by Dinah Washington. Supporting Donna we find the Wynton Kelly Trio, the same group that worked with Miss Washington for so long, and so the tribute is complete. Donna Drake is as close as anyone can get to Miss D, an uncanny resemblance that goes beyond mere imitation.

—Jordi Pujol (From the liner notes of FSRV 128)