Chicago blues legend Koko Taylor died Wednesday afternoon at the age of 80. She had been recovering from surgery to repair gastrointestinal bleeding, which was performed in mid-May.
“She was recovering slowly but surely, and then she had a real bad night,” said Marc Lipkin, a spokesman for Taylor’s record label, Alligator Records. Koko Taylor had performed only weeks earlier at the Blues Music Awards ceremony in Memphis, TN, where she received her record 29th Blues Music Award.
Jay Sieleman, executive director of The Blues Foundation based in Memphis said of Koko Taylor:
"She was still the best female blues singer in the world a month ago. In 1950s Chicago she was the woman singing the blues. At 80 years old she was still the queen of the blues."
Born Cora Walton in 1928 in Memphis, TN, Koko Taylor was orphaned by the time she was 11. She had to work the cotton fields to support herself, but came to Chicago at the age of 18 with her future husband, Robert “Pops” Taylor, to escape the plantation life.
Koko Taylor was nominated seven times for Grammy awards and won in 1984. Survivors include her daughter; current husband Hays Harris; grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Funeral arrangements will be announced, her record label said.
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