Simon Kelner: I heard of Etta's death, but her life just passed me by

Kelner's View

Etta James died earlier today (Reuters)

There are some occasions when my only response to the news that a public figure has died is that, in truth, I never really knew they were alive.

I am sure many readers will find this confession shocking, and brand me a musical Philistine, but I had this reaction at the weekend to the death at 73 of the R&B singer Etta James.

I'm the wrong side of 50, and I have a reasonable working knowledge of modern music, but I have to say that Ms James had never knowingly entered my consciousness. I wondered whether I was alone in my ignorance, given the tributes explained that she had been an influential figure for everyone from the Rolling Stones to Beyonce, and her "dancefloor classic" (in the words of i's LA correspondent), a number called "At Last", was the first song which Barack and Michele danced to at their inauguration ball.

But others of my generation – including the cultured former editor of a national newspaper – were, when challenged, equally in the dark about the oeuvre of Ms James.

However, I do accept, having read the weekend's encomia, that Etta James was indeed a colossus of the popular music world, and that I am very much a cultural pygmy.

Therefore, I was right on to iTunes yesterday, and downloaded enough material to understand what a lot of people are making a song and dance about – if you'll forgive the phrase.

I am not, however, going to make a beeline to catch up on the back catalogue of another prolific artist who died recently. I'd like to know how many among i's literate and cultured readership will have heard of the author Penny Jordan, even though she had written more than 190 books and sold over 90 million copies of her various works.

You will have guessed by now that her books carried the Mills & Boon imprint, with titles as diverse as The Dutiful Wife and Destiny's Duchess, as well as breathless sagas such as Unspoken Desire and So Close and No Closer.

It is all too easy to sneer at the rather narrow range of Ms Jordan's fiction, but you had to admire her dedication and professionalism. She wrote 5,000 words a day at the kitchen table of her mock Tudor cottage in Nantwich, Cheshire, and had four other pseudonyms as well as Penny Jordan (her real name was Penny Halsall).

She's also written historical novels, regency romances, and a few romps involving air hostesses. Can you imagine the discipline required to churn out all those words, day in, day out? All those knowing looks, all that sublimated sexual desire, all those masterful men and swooning women, all those strong, patrician jawlines and trembling lips, not to mention also pointing out where the emergency exits were. And she did it with enormous success and great longevity. Whichever way you look at it, either with a steely stare which speaks of a single-minded detachment, or through eyes misted by the forlorn realisation of a love lost, Penny Jordan was a significant figure in popular literature.

It is often in death – largely, it must be said, through the obituaries in our newspapers – that we learn about lives which have passed us by.

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