Etta James Funeral Details Announced

Etta James remembered on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images

The family of late R&B icon Etta James have announced that the Rev. Al Sharpton will preside over her funeral on Saturday. A public viewing for the singer will be held on Friday at the Inglewood Cemetery in Inglewood, California, but the funeral at the Greater Bethany Community Church City of Refuge in Gardena will be restricted to immediate family and friends.

James' family has requested that donations be sent to the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the historical and cultural preservation of R&B music.

James died at the age of 73 on Friday following a lengthy battle with leukemia, dementia and hepatitis C. The singer passed away at a California hospital with her husband, Artis Mills, and her sons Donto and Sametto James by her side.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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