Albertina Walker, the Grammy Award-winning singer and “Queen of Gospel,” has passed away in Chicago, reports said on Friday. She was 81.
Tina Nance, Walker’s granddaughter, told media that the gospel star, who started the group The Caravans, died Friday morning due to respiratory failure at a Chicago hospital.
She had been battling emphysema, and had been in Chicago, her birthplace, since August.
Walker was a prolific singer from a young age, joining the choir of the West Point Baptist Church at the age of four. She was mentored by the proclaimed “Queen of Gospel” before her, Mahalia Jackson, when she was a teenager, and she formed her own music group The Caravans when she was just 22.
Walker’s Chicago roots have made her a popular figure in the Windy City. She was a mainstay at Chicago’s yearly Gospel Festival, and a bench at Chicago’s Grant Park as well as an intersection in downtown Chicago are named after her.
Tina Nance, Walker’s granddaughter, told media that the gospel star, who started the group The Caravans, died Friday morning due to respiratory failure at a Chicago hospital.
She had been battling emphysema, and had been in Chicago, her birthplace, since August.
Walker was a prolific singer from a young age, joining the choir of the West Point Baptist Church at the age of four. She was mentored by the proclaimed “Queen of Gospel” before her, Mahalia Jackson, when she was a teenager, and she formed her own music group The Caravans when she was just 22.
Walker’s Chicago roots have made her a popular figure in the Windy City. She was a mainstay at Chicago’s yearly Gospel Festival, and a bench at Chicago’s Grant Park as well as an intersection in downtown Chicago are named after her.
