“The Voice of Ellington,” the beautiful and stylish Anderson, was with the bandleader for eleven years, a term longer than any other of his vocalists. With a relaxed style, light tone, and superb diction she would competently perform blues, ballads, and novelty songs with both enthusiasm and ease. She introduced “It Don’t Mean a Thing” with Duke Ellington and His Orchestra in 1932. Among her many recorded hits are “I’m Satisfied” (1933), “Cotton” (1935), “Isn’t Love the Strangest Thing?” (1936), “Love Is Like a Cigarette” (1936), “There’s a Lull in My Life” (1937), “All God’s Children Got Rhythm” (1937), “If You Were in My Place (What Would You Do?)” (1938), “At a Dixie Road Diner” (1940), and “I Got It Bad (and That Ain’t Good)” (1941).

In 1942 she left the band to open her own Chicken Shack restaurant in Los Angeles. Her retirement from the music business was, at least in part, due to chronic asthma, a condition that brought about her early death.

- Jeremy Wilson