Diane Schuur

Diane Schuur (born December 10, 1953 in Tacoma, Washington) is an American jazz singer and pianist. Nicknamed "Deedles", she has won two Grammy Awards, headlined many of the world's most prestigious music venues, including Carnegie Hall and The White House and has toured the world performing with such greats as Quincy Jones, Stan Getz, B. B. King, Dizzy Gillespie, Maynard Ferguson, Ray Charles, Joe Williams and Stevie Wonder. Like Stevie Wonder, Schuur was blinded at birth due to retinopathy of prematurity.

Diane Schuur grew up in suburban Seattle, Washington and was encouraged by both her parents to sing. She started singing when she was two-and-a-half, and by age nine, was getting professional gigs. She has said that as a small child she would often retreat to the closet to be alone with herself and sing. Her early childhood music heroines were Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington. Schuur had her first gig at Tacoma's Holiday Inn at age ten in which she sang country music. Attending the Washington School for the Blind, she began performing original material, and starting at the young age of sixteen, revealed a distinctive voice and began performing. Her big break came when Stan Getz became positive about her work on hearing her sing "Amazing Grace" at legendary Monterey Jazz Festival in 1979, returning in '88 and '91. In 1982, Getz asked her to join him at a performance at the White House. Nancy Reagan invited her to perform again as a vocalist with the Count Basie Orchestra in 1987. Stan Getz later played on Schuur's first three albums, Deedles (1984), Schuur Thing (1985 also with Jose Feliciano ) and Timeless (1988). Schuur's debut album, Deedles, was released in 1984, the first of several recordings to showcase her vocal abilities. In 1985, while on tour in the Far East, Schuur met B.B. King when the two of them played a music festival in Tokyo. Schuur and King eventually made an album together, Heart to Heart released May 1994, which topped the Billboard charts to number one. Twelve of Schuur's albums have reached the Top 10 Jazz Albums on Billboard history charts, including Diane Schuur: Live In London (2006)She received her first Grammy for the album Timeless (1986), and the following year received another, for Diane Schuur & the Count Basie Orchestra (1987). Schuur proved her staying power through the 1990s and into the 2000s, first with her 1991 follow up to Talkin' 'Bout You, Pure Schuur, and then with nearly an album a year from then on, including In Tribute (1992]), Love Songs (1993), Heart to Heart (1994), Love Walked In (1995), Blues for Schuur (1997), Music Is My Life (1999), Friends for Schuur (2000), and Swingin' for Schuur (2001). Late in 2003, Schuur released Midnight, featuring original songs written for the album by Barry Manilow. Manilow also performs alongside Schuur on the album, along with Alan Broadbent on piano, Chuck Berghofer on bass, and the drummers Harvey Mason and Peter Erskine. Her second live album, Diane Schuur: Live In London, was released in June 2006. It is her first release on the GR2 Classics label, the 20th album of her career and was recorded at Ronnie Scott's in Soho, London. In 2008 she released a new studio collection entitled Some Other Time.