Looking Back – Dec. 30, 2012

Each week Albany Herald researcher Mary Braswell looks for interesting events, places and people from the past. You can contact her at (229) 888-9371 or [email protected].

As the year winds down, here is a look at just a few of the lives that ended in 2012. Most of the names are familiar ones…people that brought laughter, goodwill, entertainment, change or perhaps a combination of all these things.

Etta James, with her powerful, versatile and emotionally direct voice, could enliven the blues as well as the love songs. She is in both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame. She died on Jan. 20 at 73 in Riverside, California. Did you know that James had her first professional vocal training at age five?

Joe Paterno, who won more games than any other major-college football coach, became the face of Penn State and a symbol of integrity in collegiate athletics, only to be fired during the 2011 season amid a child sexual abuse scandal. He died on Jan. 22 in State College, Pa., at 85.

The smooth-voiced television host Don Cornelius brought black music and culture into America