Singer and performer Etta James, whose distinctive deep and powerful voice spanned decades and genres, has a legacy of music that continues to resonate.
Known for hits including “At Last,” “Something’s Got a Hold on Me,” and “Tell Mama,” James overcame adversity to become one of the most well-known female vocalists of her era.
She won three Grammy Awards and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. She was inducted into both the Blues Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and was on Rolling Stone Magazine’s “100 Greatest Singers of All Time” list in 2010.
Singer Bonnie Raitt told the magazine at the time that James “can be so raucous and down one song, and then break your heart with her subtlety and finesse the next. As raw as Etta is, there’s a great intelligence and wisdom in her singing.”
But James also faced adversity, struggling with drug addiction early in her career. She served jail time for writing bad checks related to drug use, and for drug possession. She underwent treatment multiple times.
James died in 2012 after battling dementia and leukemia at the age of 73. Prior to her death, James discussed her “roller coaster” of a life during a 1980s-era documentary on women in jazz.
“If I didn’t have a roller coaster, how would I know, how would I be able to sing about the things, how would I be able to feel about what I’m singing about,” James said. “If I had my life to live over again, those roller coasters, I wouldn’t take them out, I would leave them in there, the ups and the downs, the highs and the lows.”
— Maggie Miller
photo: Getty Images