Etta Cameron (Ettamae Louvita Coakley; November 21, 1939 – March 4, 2010) was a Bahamian–Danish singer. She especially sang jazz and gospel, and left her mark in the Danish music culture through her entire career from her arrival in Denmark in the 1970s. She was made a Knight of Dannebrog in 1997.
Born in the Bahamas, which was still British at the time, she moved to the USA with her family in 1948 at the age of 9. As a child, she sang in the gospel choir of her Methodist church. In 1967, during a guest performance in London, she was offered to work in East Berlin for a few days, which turned into five years. In 1969 she appeared as a singer in the film Not With Me, Madam! and in 1970 appeared in the film He, Du! entitled Jungle City, USA.
In 1972 she moved to Copenhagen, from where she toured with her own band from 1975. She has performed as a jazz singer with, among others, the NDR Bigband, the Big Band of Radio Denmark, Kurt Edelhagen, Clark Terry, Thad Jones, Ed Thigpen, Horace Parlan, Herb Geller, Frank Foster, Dusko Goykovich, Ben Webster, Palle Mikkelborg, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Thilo Wolf, Poul Godske and Marilyn Mazur. She also performed in musicals such as South Park, interpreted pop ballads and toured with her own gospel choir Voices of Joy from 1982.
In 1976 she had a minor hit in the German singles charts: I'm a Woman from the LP of the same name reached number 42. Also popular was the single Wild Widow. She appeared with this title in the 30th episode of the Radio Bremen television programme Musikladen in the same year. In those years, her records were strongly influenced by disco and soul. Cameron taught at the Music Academy in Lund, Sweden, from 1986 and at the Rytmisk Music Conservatory in Copenhagen from 1987, where she was a professor from 1995.
Cameron died on March 4, 2010, in Aarhus, Denmark, after a long illness.
