Videos: Black Women Cross Over

Black female singers came into their own in the late 1950s and early 1960s as solo pop artists. Long pegged as jazz or R&B recording artists in the 1950s or members of girl groups in the early '60s, black women began to cross over to the pop charts thanks largely to exposure on major record labels, successful runs at supper clubs and appearances on TV variety shows. And let's not forget the importance of Ella Fitzgerald pioneering the American Songbook. Here are a bunch of newly uploaded videos I found of leading black American female vocalists (and a British superstar) between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s:

Here's Dinah Washington on the West Coast's TV show Bandstand Revue in 1955...

Here's Lena Horne on The Frank Sinatra Timex Show in 1960...

Here's Dionne Warwick in Cannes, France, in 1964...

Here's Aretha Franklin in 1964...

Here's Britain's Shirley Bassey in 1965...

And here's Nancy Wilson on TV's I Spy in 1966...