MP3 Exclusives New Arrivals   Alt-Country Alternative Blues Electronic Jambands Jazz Metal Pop Punk R&B Rap/Hip Hop Reggae Rock   Top Downloads Features Archive Contests Control Panel MUSICBLITZ Alert!   METALBLITZ REGGAEBLITZ BLUESBLITZ Musician's Friend   Alt-Country Alternative Blues Electronic Jambands Jazz Hip Hop Metal Pop Punk R&B Reggae Rock   Getting Started Free Players	Welcome !      Abbey Lincoln Once it seemed she’d been consigned to the jazz history books, but singer Abbey Lincoln has enjoyed an almost unheard-of late career rebirth. Now 70, the singer’s last decade has produced some of her finest-ever work -- much of it self-written. Add that to her pursuits as a painter, actress, and poet and you’ve got a true renaissance woman, who’s also politically outspoken and never shy about taking sides in public or on disc. She began life in the Windy City as Anna Marie Wooldridge, the 10th of 12 kids, and began singing professionally after winning an amateur contest at age 19. She moved to L.A. and took stage names like Anna Marie and Gaby Lee as she pursued careers in music and acting, appearing in the ’57 flick The Girl Can’t Help It and winning the tag “the black Marilyn Monroe.” But by the late ‘50s she’d settled on “Abbey Lincoln” as her handle; she’d also met drummer Max Roach, one of jazz’s most activist musicians, and begun to form her own political consciousness. Lincoln dates like Abbey is Blue in 1959 showcased her individual singing style, which explored different rhythms and unexpected phrasing, and her collaboration with Roach on the 1960 Freedom Now Suite marked a turning point at the intersection of music and politics. But Lincoln’s stance started making it tough to get club and recording dates, and for most of the ‘60s she concentrated on Hollywood, appearing in Nothing But A Man in 1964 and For the Love of Ivy, with Sidney Poitier, two years later. She began to write her own songs in the early ‘70s, and recorded some excellent dates for the Inner City label, like 1973’s People In Me. But despite a series of underrated albums that continued through the mid-‘80s, it wasn’t until the end of that decade that the spotlight shifted to Lincoln again. After performing a 1987 New York tribute show to Billie Holiday (later released on a pair of CDs), Lincoln signed to Verve, teamed with star sidemen like Jackie McClean and Charlie Haden and released 1990’s World Falling Down, an ecstatically-greeted comeback. That kicked off a string of strong, confident releases on Verve that included 1991’s You Gotta Pay the Band; 1992’s Devil’s Got Your Tongue; Turtle’s Dream in 1994 and Who Used To Dance in 1996. Each album enlisted top players like Kenny Barron and Oliver Lake (and, on Devil’s, the Staples Singers), but the real focus was on Lincoln’s emotive poetry and even more emotional singing. It was more of the same for 1999’s Wholly Earth, which featured a new young backing trio, and Lincoln continues to add to her late-in-life legacy with Over the Years, released in fall 2000.     Abbey Lincoln I Could Write It For A Song WinMedia Jazz What becomes a jazz legend most? A heartfelt croon from another jazz legend, of course! Abbey dedicates this swingin’ single to Thelonious Monk with love!
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