Dawn Hampton

Dawn Hampton (b. 1928, Middletown, Ohio - d. New York City, September 25, 2016) – Saxophonist (in her younger years), singer, and dancer. A performer since her earliest memories, Dawn Hampton was part of her father’s traveling group and later played alto and tenor saxophone in the Duke Hampton Band, which started in 1945. She was also one of the Hampton Sisters (originally the Hamptonians), but she left the group in 1958, when she settled in New York City and was later part of the cast of the off-Broadway show Greenwich Village, USA (year run at the Bon Soir). In the 1960s, she was a successful cabaret singer at the Lions Den, where she competed with Barbara Streisand. Although damage to her vocal chords in 1964 affected her range, she continued for another twenty years as one of New York’s leading cabaret singers. In 1992, she reached a much wider audience with her appearance with Frankie Manning as a dancer in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. Recently, she has gained a reputation as a master of swing era dancing and visited England as a dance clinician in 2001. Now an octogenarian, the last living Hampton sister will be a special guest at the Lindy Hop Dance Camp in Camp Wicosuta in New Hampshire in 2008.