Etta James - Original Album Classics (2012)

Few female R&B stars enjoyed the kind of consistent acclaim Etta James received throughout a career that spanned six decades; the celebrated producer Jerry Wexler once called her "the greatest of all modern blues singers," and she recorded a number of enduring hits, including "At Last," "Tell Mama," "I'd Rather Go Blind," and "All I Could Do Was Cry." At the same time, despite possessing one of the most powerful voices in music, James only belatedly gained the attention of the mainstream audience, appearing rarely on the pop charts despite scoring 30 R&B hits, and she lived a rough-and-tumble life that could have inspired a dozen soap operas, battling drug addiction and bad relationships while outrunning a variety of health and legal problems. This set combines five of Etta James' late-period albums for the Private Music label, 1998's Life, Love & the Blues, 1999's Heart of a Woman, 2000's Matriarch of the Blues, 2001's Blue Gardenia, and 2003's Let's Roll, in a single package.