Joya Sherrill

Joya Sherrill (August 20, 1924 – June 28, 2010) was an American jazz vocalist, children's television host, and Broadway performer. Born in Bayonne, New Jersey, she had an early interest in writing and served as editor of her school newspaper. She had one sister, Alice.

Sherrill's professional music career began in July 1942, when she joined Duke Ellington's band at the age of seventeen. Following a period of study at Wilberforce University, she returned to Ellington in 1944 and remained with the organization until 1946, when she departed to marry Richard Guilmenot. Ellington regarded her as one of his preferred vocalists, and the professional relationship continued long after her formal departure. In a 1979 interview with John S. Wilson, Sherrill described the arrangement: she continued to make recordings and appear at special engagements, with Ellington calling on her for work at least once a year. She also performed alongside Ellingtonians Ray Nance and Rex Stewart over many years. In 1957, she participated in the television broadcast of A Drum Is a Woman, and in 1962 she toured the Soviet Union with Benny Goodman.

Sherrill's recording output as a leader includes Sugar and Spice with Luther Henderson, released on Columbia in 1962, and Joya Sherrill Sings Duke, released on 20th Century Fox in 1965, on which Ellington's musicians performed in support. A later album, Black Beauty: The Duke in Mind, recorded with Arne Domnérus, appeared on the Phontastic label in 1995. As a guest artist, she appeared on Duke Ellington's Greatest (RCA Victor, 1954), Sammy Davis Jr.'s Sammy Jumps with Joya (Design, 1957), and Duke Ellington's My People (Contact, 1964).

In 1960, Sherrill appeared on Broadway in the play The Long Dream. Beginning in 1970, she hosted a children's television program called Time for Joya, which was later retitled Joya's Fun School. Although production ran for only a few years, the program continued to air in reruns until 1982. During the mid-1970s, she accompanied her husband to Iran, where she hosted her own live television program. She returned to performing in New York toward the end of that decade.

Sherrill's husband died in 1989; the couple had a son and a daughter. Sherrill died of leukemia at her home in Great Neck, New York, on June 28, 2010.