Ruth Brown brought the sass, but Koko Taylor brought the sex

The OTHER queen of the blues is gone:

Koko Taylor, the Grammy Award-winning "Queen of the Blues," died Wednesday afternoon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital of complications from surgery, according to Marc Lipkin of Alligator Records. She was 80.

Taylor, born Coral Walton on a sharecropper's farm outside Memphis, came to Chicago in 1952 and worked as a house cleaner. She began to sit in with blues bands and in the early 1960s signed a contract with Chess Records after being approached by Willie Dixon. In 1965 she recorded her signature song, "Wang Dang Doodle."

Everyone else is going to be posting her signature song, Wang Dang Doodle, so let's take a look at her at age 79 at the Kennedy Center Honors for Morgan Freeman last year:

Thanks for the gift of your voice, Koko.

UPDATE: Blue Girl has a remembrance.