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Etta James music biography continued...

California, James received her first professional vocal training at the age of five years old, from James Earle Hines, musical director of the Echoes of Eden choir at St. Paul Baptist Church in Los Angeles. James was still in her early teens and singing with a vocal trio called the Peaches when legendary R&B bandleader Johnny Otis discovered her. At Otis' L.A. home, he and James co-wrote her first hit, "Roll With Me, Henry," which would become a #2 hit on the R&B charts. Through the mid-1950s James became a mainstay of Otis' revue and scored another R&B hit with "Good Rockin' Daddy" (Number 12, 1955). In 1960, James changed record labels, but kept pumping out the R&B hits including "All I Could Do Was Cry" (Number Two R&B) and "My Dearest Darling" (Number Five R&B), In the 60s, James continued her chartbusting ways, scoring hits with such classics as 'At Last" (Number Two R&B), "Trust in Me" (Number four R&B) and "Something's Got a Hold on Me" (Number Four R&B). At the height of her fame, James developed a heroin addiction that resulted in on and off stays at a psychiatric hospital through 1974. Remarkably, throughout this time she continued to amass hit singles, proving that nothing could keep talent down for long.



Although she failed to garner any hit singles after she had bested her addiction, she remained a popular concert draw performing at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1977 and opening some dates for the Rolling Stones during their 1978 U.S. tour, among other concerts. She got back to recording in 1988, with the masterful Seven Year Itch, and has been back in the studio sporadically ever since. In 2001 James was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, and in 2003 she received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She continued to record as well, and in 2003 won a Grammy Award for Let's Roll and another for 2004's Blues to the Bone. In 2006 she released All the Way on RCA Records and won Billboard's R&B Founders award, capping a career that has been nothing less than brilliant.