Marlena Shaw, the legendary soul and jazz singer most identified for her hit track “California Soul,” has died. She was 81.
Shaw’s daughter, Marla Bradshaw, shared the information of her dying on Friday in a video posted on Fb. Her reason behind dying was not instantly out there.
“It’s with a really heavy coronary heart that for myself and my household I announce that our beloved mom, the one you love icon and artist Marlena Shaw has handed away at this time at 12:03,” Bradshaw stated. “She was peaceable. We have been at peace. … She went listening to a few of her favourite songs.”
She added, “I simply need to thanks all for being on her web page. Thanks for being part of her life. Particularly these final three years, which made her very blissful.”
Born on Sept. 22, 1939, in New Rochelle, New York, Shaw started her music profession within the Nineteen Sixties and went on to affect a number of musical genres, together with jazz, soul, disco and R&B. In complete, the vocalist launched 17 albums with eight totally different report labels all through her profession.
Shaw initially rose to reputation when Chess Data observed her within the ’60s. It was below the music label’s subsidiary Cadet Data that she launched the albums Out of Completely different Luggage (1967) and The Spice of Life (1969), the latter of which included the hit tracks “California Soul” and “Girl of the Ghetto.”
“California Soul,” written by Ashford & Simpson, has since been sampled by a number of different artists, together with Gang Starr, Stereo MC’s, DJ Shadow and Diplo.
A few of Shaw’s albums launched below Blue Notice Data, which she moved to in 1972, embody Marlena, From the Depths of My Soul and Only a Matter of Time. She later launched Candy Beginnings below Columbia Data in 1977.
Verve Data, who labored with Shaw in 1987, shared in an announcement, “We’re saddened by the passing of Marlena Shaw, an exquisite singer whose ‘California Soul’ is as widespread at this time because it ever was and whose album ‘It Is Love: Recorded Dwell At Vine St.’ helped relaunch the Verve label in 1987.”