Etta James › Similar Artists

Harvey Fuqua & <b>Etta James</b>

Aretha Franklin - 100% match to Etta James

25 March 1942, Memphis, Tennessee, USA. Aretha Franklin’s music is steeped in the traditions of the church. Her father, Rev. C.L. Franklin, was a Baptist preacher who, once he had moved his family to Detroit, became famous throughout black America for his fiery sermons and magnetic public appearances. He knew the major gospel stars Mahalia Jackson and Clara Ward, who in Read more

Ella Fitzgerald - 87% match to Etta James

Ella Jane Fitzgerald, 25 April 1917, Newport News, Virginia, USA, d. 15 June 1996, Beverly Hills, California, USA. Following the disappearance of her father, Fitzgerald was taken to Yonkers, New York by her mother and her new man Joseph da Silva. At school she sang with a glee club and showed early promise, but preferred dancing to singing. Even so, chronic shyness militated Read more

Dinah Washington - 74% match to Etta James

Ruth Lee Jones, 29 August 1924, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA, d. 14 December 1963, Detroit, Michigan, USA. Raised in Chicago, Dinah Washington first sang in church choirs for which she also played piano. She then worked in local clubs, where she was heard by Lionel Hampton, who promptly hired her. She was with Hampton from 1943-46, recording hits with ‘Evil Gal Blues’, Read more

Ray Charles - 74% match to Etta James

Ray Charles Robinson, 23 September 1930, Albany, Georgia, USA, d. 10 June 2004, Beverly Hills, California, USA. Few epithets sit less comfortably than that of genius; Ray Charles held this title for over 40 years and he was a true musical genius. As a singer, composer, arranger and pianist, his prolific work deserved no other praise.Born in extreme po Read more

Sam Cooke - 71% match to Etta James

Sam Cook, 22 January 1931, Clarksdale, Mississippi, USA, d. 11 December 1964, Los Angeles, California, USA. Reverend Charles Cook and his wife Annie May relocated his family to Chicago during the 30s. The devout young Sam Cook first performed publicly with his brother and two sisters in their Baptist quartet, the Soul Children. As a teenager he joined the Highway QCs, before Read more

Nina Simone - 69% match to Etta James

Eunice Kathleen Waymon, 21 February 1933, Tryon, North Carolina, USA, d. 21 April 2003, Carry-le-Rouet, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. An accomplished pianist as a child, Eunice Waymon made her public debut at the age of 10 in her native North Carolina. She later moved to Philadelphia and studied at New York’s Juilliard School Of Music but left in 1954 after struggling Read more

Otis Redding - 66% match to Etta James

9 September 1941, Dawson, Georgia, USA, d. 10 December 1967, Lake Monona, Madison, Wisconsin, USA. The son of a Baptist minister with the same name, Redding assimilated gospel music during his childhood and soon became interested in jump blues and R&B. After resettling in Macon, he became infatuated with local luminary Little Richard and began singing on a full-time basi Read more

Billie Holiday - 61% match to Etta James

Eleanor(a) Harris, 7 April 1915, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, d. 17 July 1959, New York City, New York, USA. ‘Lady Day’ taught herself to sing during her early teens in Baltimore, Maryland, where she was brought up until moving to New York in 1929. Factual inaccuracies and elements of myth and exaggeration have clouded the picture of her formative years despite Read more

Sarah Vaughan - 58% match to Etta James

Sarah Lois Vaughan, 27 March 1924, Newark, New Jersey, USA, d. 3 April 1990, Los Angeles, California, USA. Although she was not born into an especially musical home environment (her father was a carpenter and her mother worked in a laundry), the young Sarah Vaughan had plenty of contact with music-making. As well as taking piano lessons for nearly 10 years, she sang in her c Read more

Koko Taylor - 53% match to Etta James

Cora Walton, 28 September 1935, Memphis, Tennessee, USA. Taylor is one of the few major figures that post-war Chicago blues has produced. Her soulfully rasping voice has ensured her popularity in the Windy City, and latterly further afield, for over 30 years, since she recorded her first single for the local USA label. Signed by the leading black music independent label Ches Read more

The Supremes - 49% match to Etta James

America’s most successful female vocal group of all time was formed by four Detroit schoolgirls in the late 50s. Diana Ross (26 March 1944, Detroit, Michigan, USA), Betty McGlown (b. 1943, Detroit, Michigan, USA), Florence Ballard (b. 30 June 1943, Rosetta, Mississippi, USA, d. 22 February 1976, Detroit, Michigan, USA) and Mary Wilson (b. 6 March 1944, Greenville, Missi Read more

Howlin' Wolf - 45% match to Etta James

Fontella Bass - 44% match to Etta James

3 July 1940, St. Louis, Missouri, USA. The daughter of gospel luminary Martha Bass, Fontella toured as keyboard player and singer with the Little Milton band during the early 60s. Simultaneously, she made several solo records, including one for Ike Turner’s Prann label. When Milton’s band leader, Oliver Sain, left to form his own group, he took Bass with him, and t Read more

Al Green - 43% match to Etta James