Aida Ward

Aida Ward (1903 - 1984), was a nightclub, stage, and radio singer in the 1920s and 1930s who popularized the hit song, "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby" and "I've Got The World On A String."

Her professional career began on Broadway in 1924 as a featured singer in the musical "Dixie to Broadway." The production was a star vehicle for Florence Mills. It was the first all-Black show to have a mainstream Broadway production.

Known as the "prima donna" of the Cotton Club in Harlem, she was already a star in her own right when she became successor to the great entertainer Florence Mills. And was featured vocalist with the Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway orchestras. She was a headliner at the Cotton Club when she befriended Lena Horne, who was 17 at the time and a novice chorus girl.

She appeared in New York, London and Paris in the hit play Blackbirds (1926-27 run), and, after Florence Mills death, shared star billing in Blackbirds of 1928 with singer Adelaide Hall.

She also sang on national radio programs.

She retired from show business in the late 1940s and returned to Washington where she operated a nursing home. She retired for the second time in 1969.

Miss Ward, a graduate of Dunbar High School, was a member of the Seventh Church of Christ Scientist in Washington, where she was active on the music committee.

Her marriages to Walter Gist and Edward Chavers ended in divorce. A son by her first marriage, Jerome Gist, died in 1983. Survivors include one grandchild.

Her final days were spent in a nursing home in her native Washington DC., where she died at the age of 84 of respiratory problems at Howard University Hospital.

Source: Washington Post