There's Only One Della!

"Whatever it is you want, need or desire, you better get it now, 'cause this is the only time there is." Della meant every word of that.

As a young performer in Detroit, a visiting record executive told her that if she was ever in New York, she should look him up. The very next day, she packed her bags and hit the road. Not too long after, she cut her first LP and released her first hit single. She wasn't wasting time.

You can hear that determination in her voice. Della was one of the most biographical-sounding jazz and blues singers, since each song she performed, be it happy or sad, flirty or smoky, seemed borne of experience. She had a direct chute from her heart to her mouth, giving her vocals a right-now immediacy. It's why her recent death hit me so personally. She may be gone, but when you listen to her LPs, she's still vibrantly alive.

The sharpness of her enunciations, her sometimes licorice-snap delivery - which can reel from short to elongated staccato tones without warning - are all driven by emotion, not technical exhibitionism. In this sense, she was not, strictly speaking, a vocal stylist, but an intensely personal interpreter of song - and there is a difference. In her case, it meant that her feelings, her experiences, were the propulsive engine behind her vocals.

And it's no wonder, since she started singing gospel at her local church as a young girl, and by age thirteen, was already hitting the gospel circuit with the legendary Mahalia Jackson. Gospel demands total personal commitment, and that, more than anything else, is what she brought to blues and jazz.

Della's discography - and she recorded in a myriad of styles; jazz, gospel, pop, rock, to name a few - is extensive, so I'm not even going to pretend that the selections here cover everything. Only that they're my favorites. I love her late-era "Some Of My Best Friends Are the Blues," a live recording which demonstrates that even in the midst of shooting "Touched By An Angel," she was still rarin' to get down and dirty (and funky). Plus she sounds fantastic.

And like most Della fans, I'll always have a place for "Dellas Della Cha Cha Cha," an impossibly happy LP that's also proved to be a gateway drug, of sorts, in terms of introducing the uninitiated to the magnificence of her voice. If you know someone who's unfamiliar with her work, play them "Dellas Della Cha Cha Cha." They'll be hooked for life. If you, in fact, are unfamiliar with her, listen to "Dellas Della Cha Cha Cha" first. Trust me.

When Della decided to pursue work in TV and film, she was nervous, as she later revealed. She wasn't a trained actor, and turned to TV and film not out of any burning desire or need, but to pay the bills. Yet as she soon realized, there was no reason to be nervous. She'd been acting all her life. Like the best singers, she drew from her own biography to make her songs come alive - to be believed - and this ingrained craft, she finally came to see, was the exact same set of skills needed to act and win over an audience.

Hollywood was only too happy to welcome her, initially on TV. She became the first woman to host "The Tonight Show" and the first black woman to host her own musical variety show, "Della," both of which re-ignited her nightclub career. But Hollywood liked what it saw and wanted more. In some ways, I kind of wish they hadn't. As her acting career became more prominent, her singing and LP output became less frequent, though when she did record, it was worth the wait. 

Della once said that angels have guided and strengthened her throughout her life. She may be right. Just listen to the opening tracks of "The Story Of Blues." It's the Church Of Della in the form of song. And everyone is welcome.