Marlena Shaw, the jazz and R&B vocalist whose “California Soul” was one of the defining soul songs of the late 1960s, has died. She was 81.
Marlena Shaw, the jazz and R&B vocalist whose “California Soul” was one of the defining soul songs of the late 1960s, has died. She was 81.
Shaw’s daughter, Marla Bradshaw, announced the singer’s death Friday in a video posted on Facebook. A cause of death was not given.
“It’s with a very heavy heart for myself and my family I announce that our beloved mother, your beloved icon and artist Marlena Shaw has passed away today at 12:03,” Bradshaw said in the video. “She went very peacefully, and she went listening to some of her favorite songs.»
Shaw, a charismatic and wide-ranging vocalist, was best known for 1969’s “California Soul,” which has endured as a widely popular and often sampled song.
