Renowned New Orleans vocalist Lillian Boutte died Friday, May 23, at the age of 75, her family shared. She passed away after battling a prolonged illness.

Boutte’s career and influence stretched far beyond her hometown.  She studied opera performance at Xavier University, but was also singing in clubs at the same time. She recorded and toured extensively with Allen Toussaint and Dr John, often recording at Toussaint's Sea-Saint Studio.  When her brother John was 14 he would come along as his sister recorded with Willie Tee and Dr John.  

She built a solid reputation in the United States, including playing multiple roles in the second New Orleans cast of the groundbreaking musical One Mo Time, which then took her to tours of Europe. She became good friends with James Booker during her tenure in the cast.

In the early 1980s she assembled a band to tour overseas, and became a star performing in theaters and on television in Sweden, Germany, Poland, Italy, England, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Denmark.  In 1984, she married clarinetist and saxophonist Thomas L'Etienne.

For more than three decades, she made her home abroad, performing and promoting the spirit of New Orleans music across international stages. Along the way, she helped bring countless fellow musicians with her, offering them opportunities to perform and grow beyond the city’s borders.

Her music was rooted in New Orleans, but was not strictly traditional jazz, incorporating New Orleans music from gospel onward. In a 1986 interview with WWOZ, she said, "the people we entertain all over the world seem to like music, they don't try to characterize my music, they don't put it only as what some folks say 'Preservation Hall Music.' We play all of the music, we play the blues, we play the traditional jazz, we play many standard ballads, we play a little bit of boogie, we play soul, and a little bit of rock and roll."

She returned often to New Orleans, and WWOZ broadcast many of her performances from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and the French Quarter Festival. In one performance in the French Market she shut down Decatur Street as her audience spilled out of Dutch Alley into the street.  

In 1986 she was named "New Orleans Musical Ambassador" by Mayor Ernest "Dutch" Morial, onbly the second person to hold that title after the city's first Ambassador, Louis Armstrong.

Part of the city’s famed Boutte musical lineage, Lillian was the older sister of singer John Boutte and related to many others in the family’s rich musical tradition. As her health declined, relatives brought her back to New Orleans in 2017 to care for her.

Her brother, accomplished singer John Boutte, told WWOZ, "She unselfishly opened the door to Europe to so many cats. Doc Cheatham, the Humphrey Brothers. James Andrews was no more than 13 to 14 years old when they brought him to Jazz Ascona in Switzerland. She started that festival. And that festival now has changed that region -- there are universities and high schools there that have New Orleans jazz programs now.  I was knocked out by how many people were second lining in Ascona. And that's her legacy. That was Lillian. They call her the Queen because she was."

"The last performance I heard her was French Quarter Fest.  I turned to my friend and said 'how in the world is it possible that at her age she's getting even better?'"

Funeral details have yet to be announced.

Below, see a few photos of Lillian from recent years.