Jamesetta Hawkins, known by her stage name Etta James, was born in Los Angeles, California, on January 25, 1938, and died on January 20, 2012, in Riverside, California.

The Discovery Of ETTA

Discovered by talent scout Johnny Otis, Etta James did not have to wait long before achieving her first successes: as early as the recording of the single “Roll With Me Henry” in 1954, renamed the following year ‘The Wallflower’, she was immediately considered one of the most iconic representatives of rhythm and blues.

Her story

Etta James, who lived with her mother from childhood, never had a cordial relationship with her father, who could not accept having a mixed-race daughter with a Black woman… Married on his side, he decided to erase part of his life. Once Etta became an adult, he offered her money to keep silent. She refused and fell into deep sorrow. A large part of her life was dedicated to music, but also to drugs and alcohol, which led her to undergo numerous rehabilitation treatments.

The birth of her talent, Music as therapy

Paradoxically, this trauma allowed her to perform her songs brilliantly, touching everyone who listened to her. This fame grew even further with the release of the album ‘At Last!’ (1961), where jazz standards and blues ballads coexist, songs that would later become classics of the genre. Albums then followed one another, from ‘Tell Mama’ (1967) to ‘Seven Year Itch’ (1988).

As a result, she temporarily stopped her career, but her records continued to sell. She turned toward increasingly eclectic styles: for example, she collaborated with rapper Def Jef in 1988 (‘Droppin’ Rhymes on Drums’). Then she returned to the stage in 1990 and performed a series of concerts.

She was awarded a Grammy Award for her lifetime achievement in 2003.