California - Etta James, legendary blues singer, known for her hit, At Last died on Friday morning in Riverside, California. She died at age of 73.
Her manager, Lupe De Leon, said the cause of death was complications of leukemia. Etta, who died at Riverside Community Hospital, has been undergoing treatment for several diseases, including leukemia and dementia. SHe also lives in Riverside.
at last Etta, James died at age of 73 in Riverside, California
Etta listed his name in the 1950s with singles like Good Rockin 'Daddy. SHe entered in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame.
She also enjoys singing pop standards, as she did in 1961 with At Last, which was written in 1941 and originally recorded by the Glenn Miller orchestra.
And among his four Grammy Awards (including lifetime-achievement award in 2003) one of them to the best jazz singer, which she won in 1995 for the album Mystery Lady: Songs of Billie Holiday.
Regardless of how it is categorized, she admired. Expressing the general sentiment, Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote in 1990 that he was "one of the great singers in American popular music".
Etta himself to a career up and down. Partly due to changes in audience tastes, but mostly because of drugs.
SHe has a habit of using heroin in 1960. After overcoming the habit in the 1970s, she began using cocaine. SHe frankly describes her struggle against addiction and various journey to the center in his autobiography, Rage to Survive, written with David Ritz (1995).
Etta James was born with the name Jamesetta Hawkins in Los Angeles on January 25, 1938. Her mother, Dorothy Hawkins, aged 14 at the time; her father was long gone, and Etta never know for sure who his father, although she remembers his mother telling him that her father was Rudolf Wanderone, better known as Minnesota Fats. SHe was raised by foster parents and moved to San Francisco with her mother when she was 12.
She began singing at St. Paul Baptist Church in Los Angeles at the age of 5 years and switched to secular music as a teenager, by forming a vocal group with two friends. SHe was 15 when making the first recording, Roll With Me Henry, which contains the lyrics themselves to hit Hank Ballard and the Midnighter then, Roll With Me Annie. Because the complaints are too suggestive, the title changed to The Wallflower, while the song does not change.
The Wallflower was ranked second in the list of rhythm and blues in 1954. As often happens in recording black artists, light version immediately recorded by white singers, and find a wider audience. Georgia Gibbs version, with the title and the lyrics changed to Dance With Me, Henry, became a hit number 1 in 1955.
After decades of touring, recording for various labels and drifted in and out of the public eye, Etta made headlines in 2009 after Beyonce Knowles At Last record his version. Beyonce also sang the song at the inauguration of President Obama in Washington.
Etta left her husband for 42 years, Artis Mills, two sons, Donto and Sametto James, and four grandchildren.
Despite the difficulties of his life was colored by the end - a husband and children scramble over his assets - Etta said he wants his music to cope with grief, not to reflect the sadness.
"Many people think the blues is a depression," he told The Los Angeles Times in 1992. "But that's not what I sing the blues. When I sing the blues, singing my life. People who can not listen to the blues, they are hypocrites."