Los Angeles - Blues queen Koko Taylor has died at the age of 80 after complications from surgery, her record label announced Thursday. Taylor died Wednesday at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago two weeks after undergoing an operation aimed at stopping gastrointestinal bleeding, said a statement from her record company Alligator Records.
Though not widely known to mainstream music fans, Taylor had a five-decade stint at the top of the blues music scene thanks to her powerful voice and relentless energy, which saw her nominated seven times for a Grammy, winning once in 1984.
Her most acclaimed work included songs like Wang Dang Doodle, What Kind of Man is This and I Got What It Takes.
Born to a sharecropper family near Memphis, Tennessee in 1928, she was orphaned at age 11 and rose to prominence in the early 1960s after moving to Chicago. During the course of her career, Taylor released 18 albums. Her last performance was in May at the Blues Music Awards.
