Posts Tagged ‘Etta James’

The family of the legendary R&B singer will allow the public to pay their last respects at a viewing on Friday. Etta James, a Los Angeles native, died last week from complications of leukemia. She was 73.

The viewing will be held at the Inglewood Cemetery Mortuary from 5 to 10 p.m. on January 27. The family has requested that donations in the singer’s memory be sent to the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.

A private funeral will be held on Saturday in Gardena, with Reverend Al Sharpton presiding.

Major U.K. newspaper the Daily Mail had a case of foot-in-mouth today when they reported on the death of legendary blues and R&B singer Etta James:

“At Last” is Etta James’ best-known hit song, but without context, it appears the Daily Mail is just terribly enthusiastic about the singer’s death. The paper has been getting some grief about this over Twitter, but the headline has since been changed to something more appropriate.

Via BuzzFeed.

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Legendary singer Etta James died this morning at a hospital in Riverside, California. According to her manager Lupe De Leon, the cause of death was complications from leukemia. James was just days away from her 74th birthday.

James was born in Los Angeles in 1938 and lived in Southern California for much of her life. It was as a child at the Saint Paul Baptist Church in South Central that James’ singing career began. Musician Johnny Otis discovered James when she was just a teenager, by some accounts while she was performing at a Los Angeles nightclub.

James was portrayed by Beyoncè Knowles in the 2008 film Cadillac Records. For the film soundtrack, Beyoncè recorded a cover of James’ hit song, “At Last.”

James moved from Los Angeles to Riverside in the late 1980s. She told the LA Times she relocated because she was “tired of burglar alarms on your car going off all night.”