Evelyn Knight

Evelyn Knight was an American singer of the 1940s and 1950s. In 1948, she recorded “A Little Bird Told Me” with The Stardusters, which was #1 for seven weeks and stayed on the charts for five months. Later that year she recorded “Powder Your Face with Sunshine”; that also hit #1 and remained on the charts well into the following year.

Knight had another hit with “Buttons and Bows” in 1948, which Bob Hope also sang in the film The Paleface. The song was also recorded by and successful for Dinah Shore. Her list of hits appears below. In 1950, she released “Candy and Cake”, originally sung by Mindy Carson, and “All Dressed Up to Smile” with the Ray Charles singers. In 1951, she recorded a duet with country singer Red Foley called “My Heart Cries for You.” She was among the pioneers of early television with several appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Colgate Comedy Hour and a 1951 TV appearance with Abbott & Costello which can be viewed. Born as Evelyn Davis, she began her career in high school when she would sing at Washington D.C.’s Station WRC as ?Honey Davis? twice a week over NBC for $16 a broadcast. After high school she started singing in such high-end Washington D.C. supper clubs as The Claridge Hotel. At the age of 18, she married Andrew B. Knight, a war photographer for the Washington Post, and became professionally known as Evelyn Knight.

After many successful years in Washington she moved to New York City where she began headlining at such Manhattan nightclubs as The Blue Angel and the Plaza Hotel’s Persian Room. She launched her recording career in 1945 by signing with Decca records, and moved to Los Angeles in the late 1940s where she headlined frequently at the celebrity-studded Ciro’s and Coconut Grove.