• Singer Etta James performs at the Playboy Jazz Festival in 1990. (Los Angeles Times)

She died at Parkview Community Hospital in Riverside, said her sons, Donto and Sametto James. The cause was complications from leukemia, according to her personal physician.

James had been in failing health for years. Court records in the singer’s probate case show she also suffered fromdementia and kidney failure. Her two sons had battled their stepfather for control of her $1-million estate but in December agreed to allow him to remain as conservator.

James spent time in a detox facility for addiction to painkillers and over-the-counter medications, Donto told Reuters in 2010. And she had wrestled with complications since undergoing gastric bypass surgery in 2002 to remedy a lifelong struggle with her weight.

After that procedure, which actress Roseanne Barr had recommended to her, James lost 200 pounds. Before the surgery, her weight had gone past 400 pounds. When she performed, she often had to be escorted on and off the stage in a wheelchair. “I was constantly worried that I was going to have a heart attack,” she told Ebony magazine in 2003.

Perhaps the quintessential R&B diva, James, who was born and lived much of her life in Los Angeles, was equally at home singing unadulterated blues, searing R&B and sophisticated jazz, the latter receiving special attention in her recordings over the last decade. Her dusky voice, which could stretch from a sultry whisper to an aching roar, influenced generations of singers who came after, from Tina Turner toBonnie Raitt to Christina Aguilera. And pop-R&B singerBeyonce carefully studied James before portraying her in the loosely historical 2008 film “Cadillac Records.”

“Etta James was one of the greatest vocalists of our time,” Beyonce said in a statement on her website. “Her musical contributions will last a lifetime. Playing Etta James taught me so much about myself, and singing her music inspired me to be a stronger artist. When she effortlessly opened her mouth, you could hear her pain and triumph. Her deeply emotional way of delivering a song told her story with no filter. She was fearless, and had guts.”

Multiple Grammy-winner Raitt said Friday: “I don’t know that there’s ever been a singer that knocked me out as much as Etta. The mark she made was setting the bar so high for the depths someone can sing from. The ache and the pain and the ferocity and the soul and the sexiness — it all came through in the space of one three-minute song.”

Despite her early commercial success, James wrestled for much of her life with her weight, addictionsto drugs and alcohol and with her tumultuous relationship with her mother, who was just 14 when she gave birth to Jamesetta Hawkins on Jan. 25, 1938.

She was adored by rock’s elite, including the Rolling Stones, who drafted her as an opening act on their 1978 U.S. tour, and voters at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, who inducted her in 1993.

“Etta James was a pioneer,” said Terry Stewart, president and chief executive of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “Her ever-changing sound has influenced rock ‘n’ roll, rhythm and blues, pop, soul and jazz artists, marking her place as one of the most important female artists of our time. From Janis Joplin to Joss Stone, an incredible number of performers owe their debts to her. There is no mistaking the voice of Etta James, and it will live forever.”

James’ six-decade recording career began at the top of the R&B charts when her bawdy 1955 single “The Wallflower,” better known as “Roll With Me Henry,” quickly made her a national star.

In the rollicking early days of rock ‘n’ roll, James’ saucy song answered Hank Ballard’s then-recent hit “Work With Me Annie,” a ribald, thinly veiled invitation to a woman to have sex. James’ response, in which she assertively put forth the same offer on her own terms, was wildly popular but equally controversial coming from a 17-year-old girl long before the sexual revolution of the ’60s upended traditional sex roles.

She is best known for “At Last,” the powerhouse ballad that became a hit in 1961 and which has been enshrined in the Grammy Hall of Fame. Bending and stretching the notes of the bluesy melody to reflect the hard-won realization of a lifelong desire, and channeling a sense of joy that sounded as though the gates of heaven had just opened to welcome her in, James sang: “At last, my love has come along/My lonely days are over/My life is like a song.”

The other song with which she became inextricably connected was “I’d Rather Go Blind,” which she said she co-wrote in 1968 with her friend Ellington Jordan while he was in prison. He outlined the song and James finished it, but for tax reasons she gave the co-writing credit to Medallions singer Billy Foster, to whom she was briefly married. It conveys the desperation of a woman who prefers losing her sight to seeing her man with someone else. Rolling Stone critic Dave Marsh included it in his 1999 book “The Heart of Rock and Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made.” It was subsequently recorded by artists including Rod Stewart, B.B. King, Koko Taylor and Beyonce in “Cadillac Records,” but it remains most closely associated with James.

James, the child of a single teenage mother growing up in South Los Angeles during World War II, never knew her father but remained convinced throughout her life that he was pool shark Minnesota Fats.

With her blond curls and light complexion, she stood out in the African American community, and she started to make a mark singing in the choir of St. Paul Baptist Church. The church’s music minister, a prominent figure in gospel circles known as Professor James Earle Hines, quickly singled her out for solos when she was just 5 or 6, said David Ritz, who collaborated on her 1995 autobiography “Rage to Survive.”

The church was frequented by Hollywood stars such as Lana Turner and Robert Mitchum and had a weekly radio broadcast that helped spread word of the girl’s talents. James’ mother left her to be raised by foster parents, but when her foster mother died when James was about 12, she was reunited with her biological mother and they lived for a time in San Francisco.

“One of the peculiar things about Etta’s story — one that’s a twist on the idea of the reverend-preacher who doesn’t want his child to sing rhythm and blues — is that her prostitute mother, the sophisticated prostitute mother, didn’t want her to sing raunchy rhythm and blues, but wanted her to sing jazz likeElla Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan,” Ritz said.

As a teen, James formed a trio called the Peaches, which was discovered by R&B musician and promoter Johnny Otis (who, coincidentally, died Tuesday at age 90). Soon, she was in a duo called Etta & Harvey with Harvey Fuqua of the Moonglows, the R&B group behind the 1955 hit “Sincerely.”

Early on, she toured with Johnny Guitar Watson, the Texas singer, songwriter and guitarist, in an association that figured prominently in her approach to music for the rest of her life.

“Her real role model was not a woman, it was Johnny Guitar Watson,” said Ritz. “Johnny also could do all three things: blues, R&B and jazz. … Where he really influenced her was in his vocals. He would sing standards and then kind of bluesify them. Just as Nancy Wilson modeled herself on Little Jimmy Scott — a man — Etta James modeled herself on Johnny. … He had an enormously healthy and rich influence on her.”

She also fell under the positive and negative influences of musicians she revered, such as Billie Holiday, as well as some with whom she crossed paths on the road, including Ray Charles and Chet Baker, all of whom struggled with addiction.

“All of my role models at that time, the ones I looked up to most, were heroin addicts,” she told The Times in 1993. “I think subconsciously I thought that was a cool thing.”

In the mid-1970s, after getting caught writing bad checks to support her drug habit, James was offered a choice between prison or rehab. She chose the latter and kicked heroin, but she started using cocaine a few years later. A spiritual epiphany led her to give up cocaine and alcohol, and in the 1980s she began a personal and professional renaissance, reestablishing her credibility in the music world.

She coaxed esteemed R&B producer Jerry Wexler, who had been pivotal in the careers of Aretha Franklin, Ruth Brown, Otis Redding and many others, out of retirement to oversee her 1992 album “The Right Time.”

At the time, Wexler said, “I’ve never done anything better, and I’ve done a lot of records.”

In 1994, James saluted Holiday with an album of jazz standards called “Mystery Lady,” which yielded the first Grammy Award of her career, for jazz vocal performance. She collected two more Grammys: for the 2003 contemporary blues album “Let’s Roll,” and 2004′s “Blues to the Bone,” named best traditional blues album.

Those works became family affairs when she enlisted her two sons as co-producers. The family moved to Riverside in the 1980s because James said she had had enough of gang violence and other troubles in South Los Angeles. She lived in a simple ranch-style home.

In addition to her two sons, James is survived by Artis Mills, her husband of 42 years;and several grandchildren.

Her sons were unaware of the scope of their mother’s fame until seeing her perform at the 1983 Grammys. Donto, then a young teen, was sitting next to members of rap group Run-DMC, and they went wild when James took the stage.

“That’s when I realized my mother was truly a star,” he said.

randy.lewis@latimes.com

How’s this for strange…?

Marcel Petiot was a respected physician who turned serial killer by night, preying largely on Jews desperate to leave Paris during WWII by luring them in with promises of escape. He was accused of murdering some 27 people, but authorities suspected his real toll was far higher.

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Over the summer President Obama pushed a “grand bargain” that called on Republicansand Democrats to forge a compromise: Each would agree to painful sacrifices that would slash the nation’s deficit and shore up the social safety net for decades.

The approach failed to achieve a deal, angered many Democrats and coincided with a steady drop in Obama’s prospects for reelection.

In releasing a new deficit-cutting plan Monday, Obama displayed a striking change in course. His shift in both substance and rhetoric amounted to a tacit admission that the strategy he had pursued from April through August had failed.

Gone was the effort to strike a deal with Republicans. Gone were the summertime proposals to consider raising the eligibility age for Medicare or to change the cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security. Gone too was the conciliatory language about finding common ground and challenging the orthodoxies of both parties.

In their place was a firm veto threat, changes in Medicare that would largely protect beneficiaries, a demand for higher taxes from the wealthy and a catchy slogan, the “Buffett rule,” designed to convey Obama’s belief that people earning more than $1 million a year should not be able to pay a lower tax rate than middle-income households.

“It is wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50,000 should pay higher tax rates than somebody pulling in $50 million,” Obama said. “Anybody who says we can’t change the tax code to correct that, anyone who has signed some pledge to protect every single tax loophole so long as they live, they should be called out. They should have to defend that unfairness.”

The country faces a choice — higher taxes on the wealthy or deep, painful spending cuts, he declared.

“This is not class warfare. It’s math,” Obama said.

Even late last week, the degree to which the White Housewould shift course remained unclear. Administration officials were still weighing possible cuts in Medicare benefits when they held a closed-door meeting with Senate Democrats, who argued strongly against that — a message the White House apparently took to heart.

The 90-minute session went a long way toward shoring up Obama’s support from his allies on Capitol Hill even if they disagree with specific aspects of his proposals, as several key Democrats certainly will.

Republicans, meanwhile, rejected Obama’s proposals just minutes after he rolled out his plan in a Rose Garden speech.

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said, “Pitting one group of Americans against another is not leadership.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the chamber’s Republican leader, dismissed the proposal as a “massive tax hike, phantom savings.”

But those Republican rejections may not trouble the White House because Obama’s new proposal was designed less as a solution to the deficit problem than as a political argument to put before voters. It frames what the president’s advisors hope will be a stark choice for Americans: a Democratic Party that seeks a mix of tax increases and spending cuts to pare the deficit versus a GOP that has ruled out tax increases of any sort, even on millionaires.

“The president put down a marker today, and he did it more forcefully than we have seen before,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters after Obama’s speech, reflecting the Democratic hope. “It makes the Republican position almost indefensible.”

Despite his sagging position in the polls, Obama and his aides have some reason to believe their new approach could work. Most Americans tell pollsters they believe that those earning more than $250,000 a year should pay higher taxes to reduce the deficit. And a solid majority support the president’s call for ending the George W. Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest families which, Obama reiterated on Monday, were supposed to be temporary tax breaks.

“If Republicans want to go in a different direction from where the American people are, that is to their own political detriment,” said Bill Burton, a former White House aide and cofounder of the super-PAC Priorities USA Action.

Obama’s plan also could galvanize a Democratic Party that has been demoralized. A Bloomberg poll this month showed that 44% of Obama’s supporters like him as much as ever, but 48% said they either no longer supported him or their enthusiasm had dissipated.

Democrats, some of whom were distancing themselves from Obama as recently as last week, rushed to compliment him Monday, with statements of support also coming from groups on the left that had been critical.

MoveOn.org, for example, will air a 30-second TV ad this week touting the Buffett rule, named for billionaire tax code critic and Obama supporter Warren Buffett. The spot urges people to call Congress and urge them to “raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires so all Americans pay their fair share.”

On Monday, Obama appeared ready for a showdown with Republicans, vowing to veto any bill that cuts entitlement programs without also including revenue increases. “We are not going to have a one-sided deal that hurts the folks who are most vulnerable,” he said.

The president’s deficit proposal now goes to the congressional “super committee,” a group of six Democrats and six Republicans charged with cutting at least $1.5 trillion from federal deficits over the next 10 years. If the committee fails to come up with a proposal to send to Congress by Nov. 23, it will trigger automatic cuts to take effect in 2013, split between military and nonmilitary spending.

Now that Obama has released his deficit proposal, he will quickly return to pushing the legislation that addresses the deepest of voter concerns: jobs. Obama’s reelection hinges more on the unemployment rate, currently at 9.1% nationally, than it does on debt levels.

Even as he unveiled his much-anticipated deficit reduction proposal, the president worked in a plug for his $447-billion jobs package, intended to boost hiring through a mix of federal spending to rebuild roads, bridges and schools; tax cuts for employers and consumers; and tax increases on the affluent.

“I’m ready to sign a bill,” he said. “I’ve got the pens all ready.”

peter.nicholas@latimes.com

lisa.mascaro@latimes.com

Noam N. Levey in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.