Biography
Joya Sherrill (Bayonne, New Jersey, August 20, 1924 – June 28, 2010, Great Neck, New York) was an American jazz vocalist and children's television show host.
Sherrill began her career with Duke Ellington in 1942, aged 17, later becoming a member of his orchestra from 1944 to 1946. She had a hit with Ellington's tune "I'm Beginning to See the Light". Subsequently, she worked as a soloist, performing with Rex Stewart, Ray Nance, and others into the 1960s. She returned to Ellington for 1959's A Drum Is a Woman. She toured the U.S. in 1959 and then took a role in the Broadway show The Long Dream. She toured with Benny Goodman in the USSR in 1962 and then returned to sing with Ellington in 1963.
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From 1970 to 1982 she had a children's television show, Time for Joya, later called Joya's Fun School. Later in the 1980s she hosted a children's show in the Middle East.
She died of complications from leukemia in 2010, aged 85. She was survived by a son, a daughter, a sister and two grandchildren.
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.