Bárbara Dane, mother and grandmother of Cuban musicians Pablo and Osamu Menéndez, has passed away.

The jazz and blues singer Bárbara Dane, mother and grandmother of Cuban musicians Pablo and Osamu Menéndez, passed away last Sunday at the age of 97 in her home in Oakland, California, after a lengthy battle against heart failure.

Pablo Menéndez, one of his four children, expressed his feelings through Facebook with a simple yet powerful message: "Peace, love... and music. We must fight."

The Cuban singer Osamu Menéndez expressed his sorrow on Facebook for the passing of his grandmother: "Yesterday my dear grandmother left for another dimension. A great artist and a great human being from this country. My heart aches. Light for her always."

Bárbara Dane leaves as a legacy to her son with Rolf Cahn, folk singer Jesse Cahn; and to her children with Byron Menéndez: Pablo Menéndez, leader of the Cuban rock band Mezcla and resident in Havana, and Nina Menéndez, artistic director of the Festival Flamenco Gitano and the Bay Area Flamenco Festival.

Additionally, his artistic vein lives on in his grandson, the Havana guitarist and vocalist Osamu Menéndez, and three great-grandchildren.

The family plans to announce a memorial in the spring, possibly in conjunction with his birthday, reported the news portal San Francisco Chronicle.

The artist, whose name was Bárbara Jean Spillman, was born on May 12, 1927, in Detroit, and was a singer known for her ability to move between diverse genres such as traditional New Orleans jazz, Chicago blues, international protest anthems, gospel, and folk ballads.

In addition to her powerful voice, Dane was an effective guitarist, civil rights activist, club owner, and record producer.

Along with her third husband, folk music scholar Irwin Silber, she founded Paredon Records, a politically oriented record label that released 50 albums, which are now archived at Smithsonian Folkways.

Guided by her commitment to racial equality and leftist causes, Dane had numerous moments of recognition that quickly faded, as she always cared more about fighting for justice than her "career," a word she used to mention with a touch of irony.

However, he never expressed regret for having taken such a complex path, using his voice "to help with the complicated process of trying to change the world," as he recounted in an interview in 2016 with the San Francisco Chronicle.

From the early 1950s to the mid-1990s, his career primarily took place in the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, where he helped shape musical scenes that resonated around the world.

In the 1960s, he toured for a year with Willie Dixon and Memphis Slim as his backing band, and in 1961 he opened Sugar Hill, a venue that showcased great blues artists in North Beach, San Francisco.

Artists like Big Mama Thornton, famous for her version of the hit "Hound Dog," regularly performed at this Broadway club, where Dane shared the stage with pianist and cornetist Kenny “Good News” Whitson and Wellman Braud, a pioneer of the walking bass style in jazz during his long career with the Duke Ellington orchestra.

In 1966, Bárbara Dane became the first American artist to tour in Cuba after 1959.