NEWS: LEGENDARY BLUESMAN PINETOP PERKINS DIES AT 97 / ICONIC ACTRESS ELIZABETH TAYLOR DIES AT 79 / SINGER LOLEATTA HOLLOWAY DIES AT 64

Legendary multi-Grammy-winning blues pianist Pinetop Perkins died at his home in Austin on Monday, according to his official Web site. Perkins, who was part of Muddy Waters’ band for years, was 97. No cause of death was given.

Perkins was in his mid-70s when his first solo recordings were released, and he continued recording and performing into his 90s as one of the last remaining links with the origins of the blues in an almost forgotten world of segregation and share cropping in the Mississippi delta.

Last month, he won a Grammy for his final recording, making him the oldest Grammy winner, surpassing comedian George Burns, who was 95 when he won in the spoken category in 1990.

Academy Award-winning actress Elizabeth Taylor died of congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center early Wednesday morning, where she had been hospitalized for about six weeks, said publicist Sally Morrison.

Taylor starred in more than 50 movies including the Oscar-winning transgressions in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “Butterfield 8.” She is best known for her work on the 1959 movie “Cleopatra”.

The family asks in lieu of flowers that contributions be made to the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation — elizabethtayloraidsfoundation.org.

American disco & soul icon Loleatta Holloway, best known for her 1980 hit “Love Sensation,” has died at the age of 64, her manager confirmed.

Chicago-born Holloway had been battling a short period of ill health and died from heart failure late Monday.

It was her 80s hit “Love Sensation” that really launched Holloway as an international star, and her that’s when her vocals started to get sampled by singers including: Black Box for their 1989 UK number one hit, “Ride on Time” and Donnie and Mark Wahlberg in the Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch single, “Good Vibrations.” She was also sampled by Whitney Houston, for the 2009 hit “Million-Dollar Bill.”