The jazz and R&B vocalist Marlena Shaw, whose “California Soul” has develop into a staple factor of adverts and hip-hop songs, has died. She was 81.
Shaw’s daughter, Marla Bradshaw, introduced the legendary singer’s demise in a Fb video posted Friday.
“It’s with a really heavy coronary heart that for myself and my household, I announce that our beloved mom, your loved one icon and artist, Marlena Shaw, has handed away in the present day at 12:03. She was peaceable; we had been at peace,” Bradshaw stated within the video.
“I do know that you simply simply noticed posts of [a] birthday celebration simply as quickly as yesterday. And my twin sister and I had been very grateful, and our household, that she was right here in celebration for that. Clearly, I’m not going to enter too many particulars, however [to] her followers … she is at peace. She is in Heaven. I do know that.”
Shaw’s 1969 “California Soul” shall be immediately recognizable to many in the present day for its use in tv adverts (comparable to for Dockers, KFC and Dodge Ram vehicles) and sampling in hip-hop songs. WhoSampled.com lists 35 songs that pattern it, together with “Examine the Method” by Gang Starr, “Sofisticated” by Stereo MC’s and Diplo’s remix of the track.
Although “California Soul” might be Shaw’s best-known observe, her “Lady of the Ghetto” has been sampled much more steadily, with 54 songs borrowing components of it, in line with WhoSampled.
Shaw’s highest-charting album within the U.S. was 1977’s “Candy Beginnings,” which memorably included her swanky cowl of Gerry Goffin and Carole King’s “Go Away Little Lady” within the observe “Yu-Ma/Go Away Little Boy,” which achieved some R&B chart success. The album peaked at No. 62.
She was born Marlina Burgess (Shaw, in addition to “Marlene Bradshaw,” had been stage names) in New Rochelle, N.Y., on Sept. 22, 1942. Her uncle, Jimmy Burgess, was a jazz trumpeter whom she credited with introducing her to “good music” — the likes of Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie.
Shaw ultimately recorded for the Chess imprint Cadet Information and jazz large Blue Word Information, in addition to Verve, Harmony Jazz and Columbia (regardless of having botched an audition for Columbia’s legendary John Hammond a few years earlier than).
Verve Information stated in a Fb submit, “We’re saddened by the passing of Marlena Shaw, an exquisite singer whose ‘California Soul’ is as in style in the present day because it ever was and whose album ‘It Is Love: Recorded Dwell At Vine St.’ helped relaunch the Verve label in 1987.”
“She went very peacefully, and she or he went listening to a few of her favourite songs,” Bradshaw stated in her video message. “Thanks for being a part of her life, particularly these final three years, which made her very glad, to have the Fb web page and to work together with all of you.
“Up unto the tip, she was Marlena.”
Shaw had 5 kids.
