20th-century American women singers

Ann Ayars (23 July 1918 – 27 February 1995) was an American soprano and actress. Early in her career she acted in several TV series and non musical films. Later, she sang with the New York City Opera (NYCO), and became known worldwide when she sang and acted the part of Antonia in the 1951 British film The Tales of Hoffmann.From 1968 to 1987 she taught voice and piano and staged 19 full-length opera productions at Mt. San Jacinto College in California, where she was made a professor emerita.

Mary Ford (born Iris Colleen Summers; July 7, 1924 – September 30, 1977) was an American guitarist and vocalist, comprising half of the husband-and-wife musical team Les Paul and Mary Ford. Between 1950 and 1954, the couple had 16 top-ten hits, including "How High the Moon" and "Vaya con Dios", which were number one hits on the Billboard charts. In 1951 alone they sold six million records. With Paul, Ford became one of the early practitioners of multi-tracking.

Barbara Lang (born Barbara Jean Bly, March 2, 1928 – July 22, 1982 ) was an American actress and singer.

Virginia Lee O'Brien (April 18, 1919 – January 16, 2001) was an American actress, singer, and radio personality known for her comedic singing roles in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals of the 1940s.

Claudia Drake (born Olga Gloria Fishbine, January 30, 1918 – October 19, 1997) was an American actress and singer.At age 5, Drake and her sister Ella (age 8) formed the La Marr sisters, and the duo performed in vaudeville. When she was older, Busby Berkeley saw her singing in a casino and signed her to a contract with Warner Bros. Her roles in films included being leading lady in Hopalong Cassidy Westerns. She appears in both leading and supporting roles in a variety of B movies, mostly Westerns, from the 1940s and 1950s. One of her more memorable supporting roles is the character Sue Harvey in the 1945 film noir Detour. During the 1950s she also performed in several American television series.

Evelyn Knight (born Evelyn Davis, December 31, 1917, Reedville, Virginia – September 28, 2007, San Jose, California) was an American singer of the 1940s and 1950s. Damon Runyon, in one of his newspaper columns, described Knight as "a lissome blonde lassie with a gentle little voice and a face mother would not mind having brought home to her."

Toni Fisher (born Marion Colleen Nolan; December 4, 1924 – January 11, 1999), also billed on her records as Miss Toni Fisher, was an American pop singer. She was known for her recordings of "The Big Hurt", "West of the Wall", "Maybe (He'll Think Of Me)", and "Why Can't The Dark Leave Me Alone". She was later known as Toni F. Monzello following her marriage to Henry Monzello.

Nancy Norman (born Florence Berman on April 23, 1925) is an American singer.
Norman was born in Los Angeles, California.
Norman studied voice while attending Roosevelt High School. She sang with a swing orchestra led by Edmundo Martinez Tostado. During this time, Norman learned that "Swing and Sway" big band leader Sammy Kaye was holding a contest in Los Angeles. She entered the Who Wants to Sing With the Band contest and Kaye was so impressed with Norman that he immediately signed her on as one of his "girl singers" in his band. At just 4,'11", barely 100 pounds, and only 16 years old, "Little Nancy Norman" as she was frequently introduced, was underaged and had to be accompanied by her mother when she traveled back to New York City, as well as traveling to other cities with the orchestra.
Norman was Kaye's lead female singer from 1942 to 1945. Hits featuring her vocals in the 1940s include "Chickery Chick", "Saturday Night (Is the Loneliest Night of the Week)", and "There Will Never Be Another You". Norman had three songs in the Top 10 according to Billboard’s top jukebox played songs. "Chickery Chick" spent four-and-a-half months on the charts and one month at the top of the charts in 1945. Norman also introduced several classic songs such as "You'll Never Know" and "As Time Goes By". She performed with the Sammy Kaye Orchestra across the country, including New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia.
In 1948, Norman was married to singer Dick Brown. She married Robert Jacobs in 1949 and relocated to Beverly Hills, California. She still resides in her native Los Angeles in the same home she and her husband built shortly after their marriage. She has three children.

Mary Kageyama Nomura (born September 29, 1925) is an American singer of Japanese descent who was relocated and incarcerated for her ancestry at the Manzanar concentration camp during World War II and became known as The songbird of Manzanar.

Sandy West (July 10, 1959 – October 21, 2006) was an American singer, drummer and songwriter. She was one of the founding members of The Runaways, the first teenage all-girl hard rock band to record and achieve widespread commercial success in the 1970s.