Ann Hampton Callaway

by William RuhlmannPop/jazz singer and songwriter Ann Hampton Callaway is the daughter of television journalist John Callaway and vocal coach Shirley Callaway, and the sister of Broadway performer Liz Callaway. She was born and raised in Chicago. Her earliest recordings were on a series of releases by Ben Bagley's Painted Smiles label; she recorded bonus tracks for CD reissues of Noel Coward Revisited (1990), Cole Porter Revisited (1991), and Alan Jay Lerner Revisited (1992), as well as appearing on recordings of the shows Shoestring Revue and Tallulah. For the Porter album, she became the first person allowed by Porter's estate to write music for a previously unrecorded Porter lyric, "I Gaze in Your Eyes." That song became the leadoff track on her debut album, Ann Hampton Callaway, released on DRG Records in 1992. In 1993, she wrote "The Nanny Named Fran," the theme song for the television situation comedy The Nanny, and was heard performing it each week on the show. Her second album, Bring Back Romance, was released in 1994. In 1996, she teamed up with her sister for the album Sibling Revelry; later the two performed a musical of the same name in London. Callaway moved more toward jazz with her third solo album, To Ella with Love, released on After 9 Records in 1996. Barbra Streisand recorded her song "At the Same Time" on her chart-topping album Higher Ground in 1997, the same year Callaway released her fourth solo album, After Ours, on Denon, and a holiday album, White Christmas, on Capitol. The latter was reissued by Angel as This Christmas in 1998. In 1999, Streisand recorded Callaway's "I've Dreamed of You" and released it on her A Love Like Ours album in September; Callaway released her own Easy Living album on Sindrome in October; and she starred on Broadway in the musical Swing! beginning in December. The 21st century found Callaway signing with Shanachie Records, which released Signature in 2002 and Slow in 2004. Switching to Telarc Records, she released Blues in the Night in 2006.