Etta James, the woman who re-aligned the attitude of soul to respect le grande dáme bitch, is dead at 73. After Chess Records dumped her in the '60s for not doing so well as a balladist, she re-aligned her career with a ballsy pro-forma femme stance and scored the greatest hits of her career talking about how she was NOT to be messed with, giving the antidote to the helpless female Spector sadness. Then, she got messed with, in some very human ways: heroin addiction and recovery, jailed husband, Alzheimer's. Etta James was a force to be reckoned with, and she will be missed.
