Patti Austin

With Quincy Jones as her godfather and Dinah Washington as her godmother, there was always a fair chance that Patti Austin would become a star, and that was confirmed when she made her first appearance as a four-year-old at the Apollo Theatre in New York. Stepping out in front of thousands of people, the precocious young diva noticed that the orchestra were playing in the wrong key, so she stopped, and - to their stunned disbelief - told them in no uncertain terms of their error. The child star graduated into one of the most accomplished vocalists of the 1980s, working with everyone from Michael Jackson and Paul Simon to Harry Belafonte, and lending her smooth, powerful voice to jazz standards, pop ballads and soul hits. Commercial success came with fourth album Every Home Should Have One (1982) and hit single Baby, Come To Me, but Austin had to wait until 2008 to win her first Grammy Award for Avant Gershwin, a tribute to composer George Gershwin.