Joya Sherrill, Who Sang With Ellington and Goodman Dies

Joya Sherrill, who sang with Duke Ellington as a teenager, toured the Soviet Union with Benny Goodman and was one of the first African-American performers to host a children's television show, died on June 28 at her home in Great Neck, N.Y. She was 85.

Her death was confirmed by her son, Richard Guilmenot III, who said she had been suffering from leukemia.

Born in Bayonne, N.J., on Aug. 20, 1924, Joya Sherrill originally aspired to be a writer. While she was still in high school, her father arranged through a mutual friend for her to meet Duke Ellington so she could sing him the lyrics she had written to his theme song, “Take the 'A' Train."

Impressed by her performance, he asked her to “keep in touch" because he could “always use a good singer in the band," she recalled in an interview with The New York Times in 1979. “I thought that was just flattery," she said, but six months later he offered to hire her when she finished high school. She joined the band in July 1942.

She left briefly to attend Wilberforce University, but returned in 1944 and remained until 1946, when she left again to marry Richard Guilmenot, a construction superintendent. Mr. Guilmenot died in 1989. In addition to her son, of Great Neck, she is survived by a daughter, Alice Richelle Guilmenot LeNoir, of Manhattan; a sister, Alice Kinnebrew of Atlanta; and two grandchildren.
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