Artist: Eleanor Collins

Eleanor Ruth Collins, Order of Canada, was a Canadian jazz singer, television host, and civic leader. She was known as Canada's First Lady of Jazz.

Elnora Ruth Procter was born in 1919, in Edmonton, Alberta, American parents who had immigrated to Canada. In 1938, she relocated to Vancouver and began performing with the Swing Low Quartette, a gospel group that consisted of Collins, her sister, Ruby Sneed, along with Edna Panky and Zandy Price. They performed on CBC Radio from 1940 through 1942. In 1945, she began singing with Ray Norris' jazz quintet on Serenade in Rhythm, also on CBC Radio; a program that ran for several years and was broadcast to troops overseas.

After a brief retirement from 1948 through 1952 she appeared at Theatre Under the Stars in Finian's Rainbow in 1952 and 1954 and Kiss Me, Kate in 1953, and in a staging of You Can't Take it With You. In 1954 she began on the CBC Vancouver TV program Bamboula: A Day in the West Indies, marking the first interracial cast in Canada, and the first variety series produced in Vancouver.

She was invited by CBC to star in The Eleanor Show, that ran from June 19 to September 11,1955, making her the first woman, the first person of colour, and the first jazz singer to headline a show on national TV, predating the Nat King Cole Show. That was followed by Blues and the Ballad and Eleanor Sings the Blues, both in 1960, Were You There? in 1961, and Quintet in 1962. She starred in her second television program, Eleanor, that aired from February 1 to March 2,1964, with the Chris Gage Trio providing musical backup. She also appeared on many radio and television programs through the 1960s and 70s on both CBC and CTV, remaining in Canada despite offers to move to the U.S.

In addition to singing on TV and radio variety shows, she performed in clubs and in concert with Chris Gage, Lance Harrison, Doug Parker and Dave Robbins. Often compared to Lena Horne and Ella Fitzgerald, she recorded with Ray Norris in 1951 and appeared on CBC broadcast albums by Gage and Robbins in the 1960s. The only recordings she made were for the CBC.