Anna Marie Wooldridge (August 6, 1930 – August 14, 2010), known by her stage name Abbey Lincoln, was an American jazz vocalist, songwriter, and actress, who wrote and performed her own compositions. She was a civil rights advocate during the 1960s.
She was an influence on many other artists including Aretha Franklin. She was already a mature singer at age fourteen, and won the amateur talent contest in 1949 at the Barrelhouse Club owned by Johnny Otis. Otis was so impressed he billed her as 'Little Esther' and added her to his traveling revue, the California Rhythm and Blues Caravan. Her first hit record was "Double Crossing Blues" (#1 R+B), recorded in 1950 for Savoy Records. Her duet with Mel Walker on "Mistrusting Blues", also went to number one that year, as did "Cupid Boogie". Other Little Esther records that made it onto the U.S. Billboard R&B chart in 1950 include "Misery" (#9), "Deceivin'" (#4), "Wedding Boogie" (#6), and "Faraway Blues" (#6). Few artists, R&B or otherwise, have ever enjoyed such success in their debut year. Phillips left Otis and the Savoy label at the end of 1950 and signed with Federal Records. Although she recorded more than thirty sides for Federal, only one, "Ring-a-Ding-Doo", charted; making it to #8 in 1952. Not working with Otis was part of her problem; the other part was her drug usage. By the middle of the decade Phillips was chronically addicted to drugs.
Phillips ultimately got well enough to launch a comeback in 1962. Now billed as Esther Phillips instead of Little Esther, she recorded a country tune, "Release Me," with producer Bob Gans. This went to number 1 on R&B and number 8 on the pop listings. After several other minor R&B hits on Lenox, she was signed by Atlantic Records. Her cover of The Beatles song "And I Love Him" nearly made the R&B Top Ten in 1965 and The Beatles flew her to the UK for her first overseas performances. During the 1970's she made a temporary move into disco material and scored an international hit with "What A Difference A Day Made", an updating of the 1930's jazz standard.
Phillips died at UCLA Medical Center in Carson, California in 1984, at the age of 48 from liver and kidney failure.
The album "Set Me Free" is a compilation, tracks 1 to 4 recorded 1964 , 5 recorded 1966 , 6 recorded 1965, 7 to 13 recorded 1966, 14 to 24 recorded 1970.
Tracklist:
Liselotte Hermann was a German student who became involved in anti-Nazi activities. She was arrested and sentenced to death for high treason, becoming the first woman to be executed in Hitler's 
"Dave and I both had a love/hate relationship with this album, because it had
some of his greatest material but the arrangements keep undercutting or
overwhelming his vocals. His take was, "they gave me impressive recording
budgets, and we worked out some pretty interesting arrangements, with strings
and horns and what-all. I enjoyed that, at times, and it gave me a chance to do
some material that I would not have otherwise done, though I also was coaxed
into doing some arrangements that even at the time seemed overblown and buried
the material." 
Ernst Busch was called "the singing heart of the labor movement". He was, along with Helene Weigel, one of the best-known singer/actors who popularized Brecht's political plays in the early 30s. His powerful, "metallic" voice was a perfect instrument for outdoor rallies and large performance halls in a time when amplification was generally unavailable. Busch spent the last years of the war in a Nazi prison and, following his release, resumed his singing and acting career in East Germany.
Kurt Weill was both well respected and popular in his own day, and in the years since his death in 1950 his reputation has only increased. As a result, many of the songs on "The Unknown Kurt Weill "(recorded in 1981) are no longer quite so unknown.