I have 1,000 songs on my workout playlist, and the singer that I have the most of is Ella Fitzgerald with 60 tunes.  Ella is my favorite female singer, right behind my favorite male singer, Frank Sinatra.

Author Judith Tick’s new biography, Becoming Fitzgerald, may be the most researched book about the First Lady of Song.  Considering how famous she was, there are few books written about Fitzgerald.  Having read this newest one, I have a better understanding why that’s so.

Fitzgerald was a very private person.  The rare times when she sat down for an interview, the generic responses were often repeated.  She was married only once to the great bassist Ray Brown (an earlier union was annulled), but that lasted only six years.  Her only child, Ray Brown, Jr., was actually her half-sister’s child whom she adopted.

The greatest joy of her life was singing in front of live audiences.  Most years she would be on the road except for a few weeks at home around the holidays.

Born in Newport News, Virginia in 1917, Fitzgerald grew up in Yonkers, New York where after her father left, her mother lived with a new man.  After her mother died from a car accident in 1932 when she was 15, Fitzgerald had problems living with her stepfather resulting in her being placed in an orphanage in Harlem.

At age 17, she went to the Apollo Theatre for an amateur night intending to do a dance routine.  However, she ended up singing instead and won first place.

In 1935, drummer Chick Webb hired Fitzgerald for his jazz orchestra.  She began getting attention recording records, and in 1938, her first big single that she co-wrote, “A-Tisket-a-Tasket” became hugely popular.

One year later, Webb died from spinal tuberculosis at age 34.  Fitzgerald took over the orchestra at age 22, becoming one of the first females to front a band.

What made Fitzgerald unique was the sweet tone in her voice, her range of several octaves and her scatting.   No one can scat like Ella; she truly sounded like an instrument.  And though she was a heavy-set person, her body moved frequently as she sang, exhibiting her enjoyment.

Over the course of the next decade, Fitzgerald had modest success mostly from touring around the country and overseas.  Like Fitzgerald’s contemporaries—Billie Holliday and Sarah Vaughn—no matter how talented a black performer was in the 1930’s, 1940’s or 1950’s, that person had to surpass the best white performer in order to get attention, work and money. 

A game-changer for her was meeting record producer Norman Granz.  Once he became her manager, Granz began his record company Verve with Fitzgerald as his star.  He elevated her from a blues singer to a singer of American standards when in 1956, at age 39, Ella recorded the double-album “Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book.”  This led to several other song book albums that allowed her to sing the classic American popular songs of the 20^th century backed with lush arrangements. 

She finally achieved acclaim normally reserved for white entertainers. Imagine how big Fitzgerald would have become if she were born in 1957 instead of 1917. 

Even so, she had to face racism which meant she could only stay at black-only hotels even in the cities where she was headlining. One time in Dallas the police arrested Ella and her fellow musicians.  When they arrived at the police station and recognized who she was, they released her . . . after they asked for an autograph.

Fitzgerald sang with all the great male and female singers of her day.  Sadly, she and Sinatra never recorded an album together.  In fact, the only time both of these titans were in a recording studio was for an animated version of “Finian’s Rainbow” which never got produced.  The song “Necessity” can be heard on YouTube.

They did, however, make two television appearances together on Sinatra’s shows.  In 1959 singing “Can’t We Be Friends” and in 1967 singing “The Lady is a Tramp.”

When Frank Sinatra was convinced to return to Capital Records in 1993 to record the “Duets” album, Ella was the first singer he mentioned that he wanted.  Unfortunately, she was too ill to record the song.

Fitzgerald struggled with Type-2 diabetes and its related health issues in middle age.  First, her eyesight failed requiring thick eyeglasses that she began wearing in her 60’s.  Then, she lost an incredible amount of weight and in her final years had to have help walking on stage. 

In one of her final performances in 1992 for Muhammad Ali’s 50^th Birthday Celebration TV special, she appeared frail at age 75; she could barely sing but gave it her all.  Soon thereafter, both of her legs were amputated below the knee.  She died in 1996 at the age of 79.

Luckily, there is a wealth of recordings, both studio and live productions, as well as YouTube videos, available allowing younger people to discover the First Lady of Song.