HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF ETTA JAMES? Comes to Skirball This Month

MUSE/IQUE and Artistic and Music Director Rachael Worby conclude their 2025 season with four performances of HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF Etta James? The Guts and Triumph of An American Icon, October 14 & 15, 2025 outdoors at The Huntington and October 19, 2025 indoors at The Skirball Cultural Center. Vocalists LaVance Colley, GRAMMY winners Adrianna Hicks (Some Like It Hot on Broadway) and Gaby Moreno (acclaimed Guatemalan singer/producer) with DC6 Singers Collective join Rachael Worby and the orchestra onstage.
 
The complex life and powerful voice of Los Angeles native Etta James, whose musical journey through gospel and blues turned her into a rock ‘n' roll innovator. Her commanding voice, iconic bleached blonde up-do, and timeless records have cemented her as a true legend.

But to look past the mythology is to realize that much of Etta's career required tenacity and transformation. When mounting one of her many comebacks, Etta herself called small clubs pretending to be her own management and asked, “Have you ever heard of Etta James?”
 
MUSE/IQUE celebrates the legacy of the woman who reinvented herself time and time again, and blended grit and beauty like no one else. With songs that showcase her mastery of genre, from “This Little Light of Mine” and “When the Saints Go Marching In” to her opus “At Last,” you'll leave the show with a triumphant story, determined to be your best, most authentic self.
 
Jamesetta Hawkins (January 25, 1938 – January 20, 2012), known professionally as Etta James, was an American singer and songwriter. Starting her career in 1954, James frequently performed in Nashville's R&B clubs, collectively known as the Chitlin' Circuit, in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. She sang in various genres, including gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, rock and roll and soul and gained fame with hits such as "The Wallflower" (1955), "At Last" (1960), "Something's Got a Hold on Me" (1962), "Tell Mama" and "I'd Rather Go Blind" (both 1967). She faced a number of personal problems, including heroin addiction, severe physical abuse and incarceration, before making a musical comeback in the late 1980s with the album “Seven Year Itch” (1988).
 
James's deep and earthy voice is considered to have bridged the gap between R&B and rock and roll. She won three GRAMMY Awards  (2005 - Best Traditional Blues Album for “Blues to the Bone;” 2004 - Best Contemporary Blues Album for “Let's Roll” and 1995 - Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Female for “Mystery Lady: Songs of Billie Holiday”) and 17 Blues Music Awards. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, the GRAMMY Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001. She also received the GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. Rolling Stone ranked James number 22 on its 2008 list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time"; she was also ranked number 62 in its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". Billboard's 2015 list of the "35 Greatest R&B Artists of All Time" also included James.
 
“Though her life had its share of troubles to the end, … Ms. James said she wanted her music to transcend unhappiness, rather than reflect it…. ‘A lot of people think the blues is depressing,' she told The Los Angeles Times in 1992, ‘but that's not the blues I'm singing. When I'm singing blues, I'm singing life.'”