During World War II and into early 1950s, she performed as part of a quartet with her three sisters and in a jazz band with all nine of her surviving siblings.

The nine surviving children included four daughters (Carmalita, Aletra, Virtue, and Dawn) and five sons (Clarke Jr. "Duke", Marcus, Russell "Lucky", Maceo, and Locksley "Slide").

Dawn joined the family band and its vaudeville act at the age of three, beginning her long career as a musical performer.

[12] Her youngest brother, "Slide" Hampton, is a two-time Grammy Award-winner and a noted jazz trombonist, composer, and arranger.

During 1940s and early 1950s she performed in a quartet with her three sisters and with all nine of her surviving siblings in Duke Hampton's Orchestra, her older brother's jazz band.

The family traveled the Midwest, especially in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Indiana, performing at fairs, carnivals, tent shows, and private parties.

[1][7] In 1938, after an unsuccessful trip to California to find work in the Hollywood film industry, the family relocated to Indianapolis, Indiana, where the Hamptons continued to tour and perform in local clubs.

Duke Hampton's band also played at the Cotton Club and the Sunset Terrace on Indiana Avenue, the center of Indianapolis's jazz scene and the entertainment hub of the city's black community, as well as other venues in town.

[8][16] In May 1952 Hampton and her siblings performed in concert at New York City's Carnegie Hall as one of the winners in a Pittsburgh Courier popularity poll of its readers.

[7][8][17] Shortly thereafter, Hampton appeared with her brother's band when it returned to New York City to perform at Harlem's Apollo Theater and the Savoy Ballroom.

[21][22] In 1989 she collaborated with Mark Nadler to write music and lyrics for Red Light, a honky-tonk mini-opera that received a Manhattan Association of Cabarets (MAC) award in 1990.

In 1992, along with Frankie Manning and Sonny Allen, she appeared as a dancer in the Lindy Hop swing dance scene in Spike Lee's movie, Malcolm X.