The Associated Press observed at her passing, "On screen, on records and in nightclubs and concert halls, Ms. Horne was at home vocally with a wide musical range, from blues and jazz to the sophistication of Rodgers and Hart in songs like 'The Lady Is a Tramp' and 'Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.' In her first big Broadway success, as the star of "Jamaica" in 1957, reviewer Richard Watts Jr. called her 'one of the incomparable performers of our time.' Songwriter Buddy de Sylva dubbed her 'the best female singer of songs.' Her 1981 one-woman Broadway show, 'Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music,' won a special Tony Award. In it, the then 64-year-old singer used two renditions — one straight and the other gut-wrenching — of "Stormy Weather" to give audiences a glimpse of the spiritual odyssey of her five-decade career. A sometimes savage critic, John Simon, wrote that she was "ageless ... tempered like steel, baked like clay, annealed like glass; life has chiseled, burnished, refined her.'"
Prepping for writing this post, I listened again to recordings of Lena Horne singing several of the songs that she helped make famous. One of the many that stands out in my memory, as I write this post, is the song, "A Fine Romance." -- A fine romance, yes. Ms. Horne was a fine lady who lived life at its finest. Those of us who love music had a romance with her, as she had a romance with life. She is being remembered as a singer and as an activists for civil rights. She had a voice that to hear it sing made the moment seem better. And she was an activist, who used her talent to work to try to make life better.
Lena Horne, R.I.P.
Her bio. Videos to check out: Lena Horne on Good Morning America, talks about her upcoming soon to be hit Broadway show The Lady & Her Music to Joan Lunden in 1981, Stormy Weather (1943), A Fine Romance.
Lena Horne denitely delivers. Her classic signature song, "Stormy Weather," in a medley with her latter-day anthem "If You Believe," the song from the musical 'The Wiz'.