Dixie Cups founding member Joan Marie Johnson passed away in New Orleans on October 5, 2016 of congestive heart failure. She was 72.

The Dixie Cups were formed at a high school talent show, when Johnson invited Barbara Ann Hawkins to sing with her. Hawkins later asked her sister Rosa Lee Hawkins to join them. They had all grown up in the Calliope housing projects and Johnson later discovered that Barbara Ann and Rosa Le...