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    Early Hardship Couldn't Muffle Ella Fitzgerald's Joy

    Before she became First Lady of Song, Fitzgerald navigated childhood loss, poverty and homelessness — always with music as her refuge.
    by Susan Stamberg Apr 25, 2017 2 minutes
    Music was always her refuge, but Ella Fitzgerald never thought she would be a singer until she won an Amateur Night contest at the Apollo Theater in 1934.

    One hundred years ago Tuesday, in a working-poor neighborhood of Newport News, Va., a laundress and a shipyard worker had a baby girl. The father soon disappeared, and the mother and child moved north to New York. The mother died. The girl ran away and became one of the most important singers of the 20th century.

    could sing anything: a silly novelty song, like her

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