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. Her first ambition was to become a writer: she was the editor of her school paper. She had a sister, Alice.Sherrill began her career with Duke Ellington in 1942 when she was seventeen. Ellington considered her one of his favorite singers. After the 1940s, Sherrill performed with Ray Nance and Rex Stewart, both former sideman for Ellington. She married Richard Guilmenot in the mid-1940s. She worked with Ellington again on the television broadcast A Drum Is a Woman (1957), and toured the USSR with Benny Goodman in 1962.From 1970 Sherrill had a children's television show, Time for Joya, later called Joya's Fun School. This was recorded for a few years, but was rerun until 1982. In the mid-1970s she accompanied her husband when he went to Iran for his work. There, she had her own television program, which was broadcast live. She returned to singing in New York near the end of that decade. Her husband died in 1989; they had a son and a daughter. Sherrill died from leukemia at home in Great Neck, New York on June 28, 2010.