Etta James

Though Californian belter Etta James is widely known as one of the greatest blues singers, famed for her '60s Chess recordings and '70s Muscle Shoals work, her story is bigger than that. She started out with the Johnny Otis band in the '50s as a hard-edged R&B singer of the kind whose records would've been called rock & roll if made by a white singer. The tireless James never stopped working, and by the '90s, she'd covered everything from jazz standards to Steppenwolf and CCR.

• Ann Peebles
• Aretha Franklin
• Big Maybelle
• Billy Stewart
• Fontella Bass
• Hank Ballard
• Irma Thomas
• Jean Knight
• Johnny "Guitar" Watson
• Johnny Otis
• Koko Taylor
• Little Milton
• Ruth Brown
• Tina Turner
• Varetta Dillard

• Alberta Hunter
• Bessie Smith
• Big Mama Thornton
• Billie Holiday
• Dinah Washington
• Ella Fitzgerald/Benny Carter
• Ernestine Anderson
• Ida Cox
• Lucille Bogan
• Ma Rainey
• Memphis Minnie
• Muddy Waters
• Sarah Vaughan
• Sippie Wallace
• Victoria Spivey/Lonnie Johnson

• Bonnie Raitt
• Chicken Shack
• Diana Ross
• Janis Joplin
• LaBelle
• Marcia Ball
• Marva Wright
• Mary Coughlan
• Pat Cisarano
• Rod Stewart
• Ruby Turner
• Saffire-The Uppity Blues Women
• Shemekia Copeland
• Susan Tedeschi
• The Rolling Stones

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