The inimitable Al Jarreau has passed away. Just four days ago, the famous singer announced his retirement from touring, following his admittance to the hospital for exhaustion. A message on his social media channels suggested that he was “slowly getting better,” but it seems things took a turn for the worse over the weekend, and Jarreau passed away this morning at the age of 76.
Jarreau was a seven-time Grammy Award winner, winning awards in the jazz, pop, and R&B categories. He got his start in the late 1960s as a singer in various jazz bands before he released his debut album in 1975, the internationally successful We Got By. Jarreau would release twenty albums in total over the course of his career, and he toured constantly, performing over fifty concerts in 2016, including an appearance at the White House.
To honor of Al Jarreau after a life and career filled with music, check out a few of his greatest moments below. You’ll find his debut album We Got By, arguably his most commercially successful single “We’re In This Love Together”, “Hot News Blues”, a song he recorded with Chick Corea on the album Secret Agent, and “We Are The World”, which features Jarreau as one of the lead voices of the star-studded cast of vocalists (Jarreau delivers the classic line “…and so we all must lend a helping hand.”).
“We Got By”
“We’re In This Love Together”
“Hot News Blues”, Chick Corea feat. Al Jarreau
“We Are The World”
Rest in Peace, Al Jarreau.