Etta James Hospitalized Infection – R&B News

By: John Lester
01/29/2010 06:23 PM ET

Etta James has been hospitalized in Southern California with a urinary tract infection. According to her son, Donto James, the infection is serious but treatable. She is fighting off three separate kinds of serious bacteria, according to her son.

“Right now she is very confused,” her son said. He described his mother as “quite combative … fighting, biting — I’m talking way off the chart.”

Donto also said he’s hoping for more information about his mother’s condition. The R&B singer was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease a year ago. The illness, he said, led her to the controversial comments at a concert a year ago where she suggested that pop-star Beyonce should be “whipped” for singing “At Last” for President Obama’s inaugural ball.

The story behind the Beyonce incident was that James was supposed to be hired for the inaugural, but she wasn’t well at the time. “I can’t stand Beyonce,” she told a local Seattle newspaper. “She has no business up there, singing up there on a big old president day, gonna be singing my song that I’ve been singing forever.”

R&B Singer Suffered From Drug-Induced Dementia

James, 72, went to Riverside Community Hospital after recovering from sepsis. This was caused by a urinary tract infection. She entered a treatment program about a month ago to shake a dependency on painkillers and over-the-counter medicine.

The painkiller medications were for a back injury. She also suffered from “drug-induced dementia,” according to her son. She has stopped taking the drugs and all other related medications.

She was then transferred to another facility and then the hospital when her physical condition worsened. She’s been in the hospital for about a week. She is expected to make a full recovery. She is best known for her 1961 hit “At Last.”

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