Cassandra Wilson, 2-time Grammy Award-winning jazz singer, dies at 70

NEW YORK — Cassandra Wilson, the two-time Grammy Award-winning jazz singer, songwriter and producer has died. She was 70.

Dubbed America’s best singer by Time magazine in 2001, Wilson was best known for her genre-bending voice, which expanded the boundaries of traditional blues-based jazz and worked effortlessly across folk, pop, R&B, country and beyond. At the heart of all her work was her idiosyncratic contralto, a soulful sound distinctly tied to her roots.

As Jon Batiste put it in a eulogy on Wednesday, Wilson sounded like the South.

She died in her native Jackson, Mississippi, on Tuesday morning, the Hinds County Coroner Jeramiah Howard confirmed.

“It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Cassandra Wilson, the Grammy Award-winning and legendary jazz artist. Cassandra Wilson transitioned peacefully at home, surrounded by family, close friends, and her manager,” said a statement from her manager to jazz radio station WBGO.

Born and raised in Jackson to musician Herman B. Fowlkes and teacher Mary Fowlkes, Wilson showed an early love of music listening to Motown, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk. At 6, she started piano lessons. She played clarinet in marching bands. She performed at coffeehouses and in cover bands while…

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