Her

Maryla Jonas, Polish-born concert pianist, made her debut as a child prodigy in Warsaw at the age of 9 and became a pupil of Ignacy Jan Paderewski. She won an International Chopin Prize in 1922 and the Beethoven Prize of Vienna the next year. She was in bombed-out Warsaw when it was captured by the Nazis, but escaped in 1940, a feat that was described later as "miraculous." Walking day and night, she traveled 325 miles to the Brazilian Embassy in Berlin. From there, Jonas went to Rio de Janeiro, where her married sister, Mrs. Bertha Holin, then lived, and entered a sanitarium.

This album, originally released as "Little Girl Blue on Bethlehem" (SBCP6028), was Nina Simone's first album and first studio recording ever.

The mere mention of Vera Lynn's name evokes images of London skies filled with a barrage of balloons, and Britons riding out the German blitz in shelters and underground stations. England's sweetheart during the trying times of World War II, Lynn was still in her twenties when she took on that role. She was born Vera Margaret Welch in London's East Ham, to Bertram and Annie Welch, one year before the close of the First World War. She began singing as a girl of seven, also studying dance as a child. She later took her maternal grandmother's maiden name as her stage name, and her natural, unaffected vocal style and charm brought Lynn early success on the radio. At age 18, she was singing with Joe Loss' orchestra, and she'd also begun recording for the Crown label.

Maryla Jonas, a Polish-born concert pianist, made her U.S. debut at Carnegie Hall in February, 1946. As a newcomer, she received favorable reviews, but the next month Olin Downes, reviewing a recital before a crowded house in the same hall, wrote in The New York Times that "she has few equals as an interpreter among the leading pianists of today." As a child prodigy, Jonas made her debut in Warsaw at the age of 9 and became a pupil of Ignacy Jan Paderewski. She won an International Chopin Prize in 1922 and the Beethoven Prize of Vienna the next year. She was in bombed-out Warsaw when it was captured by the Nazis, but escaped in 1940, a feat that was described later as "miraculous." Walking day and night, she traveled 325 miles to the Brazilian Embassy in Berlin. From there, Jonas went to Rio de Janeiro, where her married sister, Mrs.

Maria Callas was born to a Greek family in New York in 1923. Her vocal training took place in Athens, where her teacher was the coloratura soprano Elvira de Hidalgo, who had sung with Enrico Caruso and Feodor Chaliapin. After early performances in Greece, Callas’s international career was launched in 1947 when she performed the title role in Ponchielli’s La Gioconda at the Arena di Verona in Italy. Her voice defied simple classification and her artistic range was extraordinary. In her early twenties she sang such heavy dramatic roles as Gioconda, Turandot, Brünnhilde and Isolde, but over the course of her career her most famous roles came to be: Bellini’s Norma and Amina (La sonnambula); Verdi’s Violetta (La traviata); Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Anna Bolena, Cherubini’s Medea and Puccini’s Tosca. Though her timbre was not always conventionally beautiful, Callas’s musicianship and phrasing were in a class of their own. She brought characters to vivid life with her skill in colouring her tone and making insightful use of the text.

As an African American woman born in 1943, Maxine Childress Brown possessed a unique vantage point to witness the transformative events in her parents’ lives. Both came from the South – her father, Herbert Childress, from Nashville, TN, and her mother, Thomasina Brown, from Concord, NC. The oldest of three daughters, Maxine was fascinated by her parents’ stories. She marveled at how they raised a well-respected, middle-class family in the midst of segregation with the added challenge of being deaf.