sentences:  After first singing in her church and school, she started performing in clubs by the age of fifteen.She won a talent contest in New York's Apollo Theater, singing "September Song", and after making demonstration records for Peggy Lee and Lena Horne, acquired her own contract as Joan Shaw.Her first disc was 1949's "He Knows How to Hucklebuck", with the Paul "Hucklebuck" Williams Orchestra, for the Savoy label.