Etta James (Jamesetta Hawkins) was born on January 25, 1938, in Los Angeles, California, to Dorothy Hawkins, who was only 14 at the time, with her father being unknown to her. Due to her mother's frequent absences from their apartment conducting relationships with various men, James lived with a series of foster parents. Causing her upbringing to be highly unsettled, with a constant movement away from friends and remaining family members. As a consequence later in life she faced many personal problems including that of a heroin addiction.
Her love for music took her away from the poverty she once faced, and allowed her to focus upon a future rather than her past. Spanning from a variation in music genres James is most recognisable to the genres of: blues, R&B, soul, rock & roll, jazz and gospel. James herself being regarded to have bridged the gap between rhythm & blues and rock & roll. James possessed the vocal range of a contralto (meaning the lowest female vocal range). James's musical style changed during the course of her career. When beginning her recording career in the mid-50s, James was marketed as an R&B and doo-wop singer. After signing with Chess Records in 1960, James broke through as a traditional pop-styled singer, covering jazz and pop music standards on her debut album, At Last! James's voice deepened and coarsened, moving her musical style in her later years into the genres of soul and jazz.
James was hospitalized in January 2010 to treat an infection caused by MRSA, a bacterium that is resistant to most antibiotic treatments. During her hospitalization, her son Donto revealed that she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2008. She was diagnosed with leukemia in early 2011. The illness became terminal and she died on January 20, 2012, just five days before her 74th birthday, at Riverside Community Hospital in Riverside, California.
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