In Loving Memory of Jamesetta (Etta James)  Hawkins: January 25, 1938 - January 20, 2012 .

Etta James (born Jamesetta Hawkins), was an American singer whose style spanned a variety of music genres including blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, soul, gospeland jazz. Starting her career in the mid-1950s, she gained fame with hits such as "Dance With Me, Henry", "At Last", "Tell Mama", and "I'd Rather Go Blind" for which she claimed she wrote the lyrics. The 73-year-old died on Friday at Riverside Community Hospital from complications of leukemia, with her husband and sons at her side, her manager, Lupe De Leon said.

Etta James had once been considered one of the most overlooked blues and R&B musicians in American music history but has now come to be regarded as having bridged the gap between rhythm and blues and rock and roll, and is the winner of six Grammys and 17 Blues Music Awards. It wasn't until the early 1990s when James began receiving major industry awards from the Grammys and the Blues Foundationthat she began to receive wide recognition. In 2011, James was voted one of the 11 Best Singers On Earthby viewers to Btoe, the multimedia Web site founded by Colin Larkin, creator of the Encyclopedia of Popular Music.

Etta James was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Famein 1993, the Blues Hall of Famein 2001, and the Grammy Hall of Famein both 1999 and 2008. Rolling Stoneranked James number 22 on their list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time and number 62 on the list of the 100 Greatest Artists.

Etta had a troubled and controversial childhood and possibly because of that, her spirit could not be contained - perhaps that's what made her so magnetic in music; it is surely what made her so dynamic as one of R&B, blues and rock `n' roll's underrated legends.

In the early 1950’s James began listening to doo-wopand was inspired to form a girl group, called the Creolettes. The 14-year-old girls met musician Johnny Otis. It is said that Otis spotted the group performing at a Los Angeles nightclub and sought them to record his "answer song" to Hank Ballard's "Work With Me, Annie". Otis took the group under his wing, helping them sign to Modern Recordsand changed their name from the Creolettes to the Peaches and gave the singer her stage namereversing Jamesetta into Etta James. James recorded the answer to “Work With Me, Annie”, which she was allowed to co-author, in 1954, and the song was released in early 1955 as "Dance with Me, Henry".

"The bad girls ... had the look that I liked," she wrote in her 1995 autobiography, "Rage to Survive." `'I wanted to be rare, I wanted to be noticed, I wanted to be exotic as a Cotton Club chorus girl, and I wanted to be obvious as the most flamboyant hooker on the street. I just wanted to be."

Despite the reputation she cultivated, she would always be remembered best for "At Last." The jazz-inflected rendition wasn't the original, but it would become the most famous and the song that would define her as a legendary singer. Over the decades, brides used it as their song down the aisle and car companies to hawk their wares, and it filtered from one generation to the next through its inclusion in movies like "American Pie." Perhaps most famously, President Obama

"Etta James was a pioneer. Her ever-changing sound has influenced rock and roll, rhythm and blues, pop, soul and jazz artists, marking her place as one of the most important female artists of our time," said Rock and Roll Hall of Fame President and CEO Terry Stewart. "From Janis Joplin to Joss Stone, an incredible number of performers owe their debts to her. There is no mistaking the voice of Etta James, and it will live forever."