Joya Sherrill

Joya Sherrill (August 20, 1924 – June 28, 2010) was an American jazz vocalist and children's television show host.

Sherrill was born in Bayonne, New Jersey on August 20, 1924.[1] Her first ambition was to become a writer:[1] she was the editor of her school paper.[2] She had a sister, Alice.[1]

Sherrill began her career with Duke Ellington in 1942 when she was seventeen.[1] Ellington considered her one of his favorite singers.[3] After the 1940s, Sherrill performed with Ray Nance and Rex Stewart, both former sideman for Ellington.[3] She married Richard Guilmenot in the mid-1940s.[1] She worked with Ellington again on the television broadcast A Drum Is a Woman (1957), and toured the USSR with Benny Goodman in 1962.[1]

From 1970 Sherrill had a children's television show, Time for Joya, later called Joya's Fun School.[1] This was recorded for a few years, but was rerun until 1982.[1] In the mid-1970s she accompanied her husband when he went to Iran for his work.[2] There, she had her own television program, which was broadcast live.[2] She returned to singing in New York near the end of that decade.[2] Her husband died in 1989;[1] they had a son and a daughter.[2] Sherrill died from leukemia at home in Great Neck, New York on June 28, 2010.[3]