Phyllis Wozniak was born on February 1, 1930, in Michigan City, Indiana. As a child, she studied piano for twelve years, starting at age “four, four-and-a-half. I gave my first concert when I was five.” Despite demonstrating ability as a pianist, she preferred to sing.

She started singing when she was a teen-ager in her hometown with local bands. Her first influences were...” Oh, I loved listening to Frank Sinatra. As a kid, I was crazy about him and got every record I could find... I listened to him on the radio. Then I loved Judy Garland. Give me a break! Loved her in the movies. Thought she was just so special and real.” Pinky used to listen to Dinah Shore and the Andrews Sisters on her dad’s wind-up Victrola. She fondly remembers that one of the first Great American Songbook albums she owned was Ella Fitzgerald's “Ella Sings Gershwin” with Ellis Larkins.

Following high school, Pinky worked for a few years in an office until her girlfriend said, “We gotta leave this town!” Off they moved to Denver in their Nash Rambler convertible. Upon arriving in Denver, they went to a club that had a band. Pinky’s girlfriend asked the drummer (Shelly Rhym) if her friend could sing. “Oh, ok, what’s her name?” “Phyllis Wozniak.” “What?” “Well, it’s really Pinky Winters.” Thus, Pinky’s stage name was born. The pianist that night was Dick Grove (who became one of the country’s foremost jazz educators). Dick lived in a Victorian house with a small studio, where Pinky used to take piano lessons from him. She and he performed in clubs  around Denver. One day, she went to a club called “Dante’s Inferno,” a strip club where she played during intermissions. However, after two weeks, the owner told her, “You are a great singer, but not for my club.”

Dick and bassist Jim Wolf (who would become Pinky’s first husband) moved to Los Angeles and soon convinced Pinky to follow in 1953, where she settled in Manhattan Beach. Dick Grove opened the Dick Grove Music Workshop and hired bassist Jack Smalley, who played with Page Cavanaugh. Soon, Dick hired Pinky for a lesson called “How to play for singers,” so she began singing for students.

In her early days in LA, Pinky worked at the Club Starlite on 1520 W. Manchester with Kenny Miller on tenor sax, Helene Mirich on piano, Jim Wolf on bass, and a drummer. Bob Andrews, an amateur drummer and jazz fan, had a record store called Record Ville in the South Bay area of Redondo Beach, not far from The Lighthouse and Manhattan Beach. In the fall of 1954, Andrews offered Pinky the opportunity to record an album for his label, Vantage. Pinky accepted and brought Jim Wolf along, and Andrews hired pianist Bud Lavin and drummer Stan Levey. Her debut album was released as a 10-inch record with the title “Pinky,” marking an effective start for a singer with a deep  emotional interpretation and excellent musical imagination.

At the end of January 1956, Leonard Chess traveled to Los Angeles to record Pinky. Prior to the recording date, Pinky went to a jam session at a club on Central Ave, where pianist Gerald Wiggins was playing with bassist Joe Comfort and drummer Chico Hamilton. She sat in with them, and they enjoyed playing together that night. So when Harry Goodman (Benny Goodman’s brother), the Argo A&R representative, asked her which musicians she would like to have on her album, she requested Wiggins and Hamilton, along with her husband and her preferred guitarist, Howard Roberts. The recording took place at the old Capitol Studios on Melrose Ave. on January 31, and February 7 and 11, 1956.The result of the three sessionswas the album titled “The Lonely One.” With this album, Pinky’s relaxed personal style, sense of dynamics, and respect for the challenges in each song solidified her reputation as a vocalist in the jazz scene.

Later in 1956, she began working during the day as a secretary and sang at night at a Santa Monica spot, accompanied by Hampton Hawes, Red Mitchell, and Bruce Freeman. In 1957, her daughter Lisa was born, and in 1959, she separated from Jim Wolf. Pinky then stopped singing in clubs to take care of her daughter. She continued singing at parties with friends. In 1965, she married tenor saxophonist Bob Hardaway, and they moved to the San Fernando Valley. A year later, she had another child. In the 1970s, she met pianist Bob Florence, with whom she enjoyed singing, and they often met just for fun. In 1980, alto saxophonist Lanny Morgan invited Pinky to sing at Donte’s with his quartet, which included Lou Levy on piano, Chuck Berghofer on bass, and Frankie Capp on drums. This was her first gig in years and marked her comeback to the jazz scene. Upon divorcing Hardaway later that year, she began working steadily again.

Shortly thereafter, Carey Leverette, the owner of Donte’s, wanted her to sing at the club once a month. She accepted and called Russ Freeman, but he told her he was not playing for singers anymore. So, she reached out to her friend Bob Florence. With him, she not only appeared at Donte’s but also at various other clubs around the city, such as Stevie G’s in Studio City. Pinky noticed that from time to time, Lou Levy showed up at clubs when she worked with Florence.

In 1982, Levy approached her during a break at Carmelo’s. “He said, ‘Hey, if you ever need a piano player, call me.’ So, once when Bob couldn’t make a gig, I called Lou. I went over to his house and we rehearsed, and he played well. And he was charming. And he was nice to me. We began working together,” recalled Pinky. They began a long personal and professional partnership. Pinky and Lou released the amazing “Let’s Be Buddies” in 1985, Pinky’s first new album in 28 years.

In 1992 she performed with the 52-piece Dutch Radio Orchestra in Hilversum, the Netherlands. “That was the heights of music, absolutely,” she said. Later,with Lou Levy, she released “As Long as There’s Music” in 1994 and “Happy Madness.”

Following Levy’s death in 2001, Pinky teamed up with pianist/arranger Sir Richard Rodney Bennett. Together, they recorded the album “Rain Sometimes” in 2005, followed by a live album recorded in Tokyo, “World on a String: Pinky Winters Sings Sinatra” in 2007. In 2010, she made her last recording, “Winters in Summer,” an album of classic bossa nova tunes.

Pinky is a living legend. She never stopped singing and still occasionally appears in clubs and festivals in Los Angeles. “This is a voice which will enchant you now and evermore.” wrote jazz vocalist Carol Sloane in her liner notes for “Rain Sometimes.”

—Jordi Pujol (Taken from the inside liner-notes of FSRV 140)