Koko Taylor, seen in Washington in December 2008, continued performing right up until last month. (Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images)

Koko Taylor, the Grammy Award-winning blues veteran dubbed the Queen of the Blues, has died at the age of 80.

Taylor died at a Chicago hospital on Wednesday after suffering complications from intestinal surgery she had two weeks ago, according to a statement from her label, Alligator Records.

"The passion that she brought and the fire and the growl in her voice when she sang was the truth," blues singer and musician Ronnie Baker Brooks said in tribute. "The music will live on, but it's much better because of Koko. It's a huge loss."

Born into a sharecropping family living outside of Memphis, Taylor was encouraged to sing gospel music by her father but said she always dreamed of being a blues singer, especially after listening to B.B. King's radio show as a teen.

"I would hear different records and things by Muddy Waters, Bessie Smith, Memphis Minnie, Sonny Boy Williams and all these people, you know, which I just loved," she once said in an interview. Her siblings also shared her love of blues.

Taking the nickname Koko, which she picked up due to her love of chocolate, she moved to Chicago at the age of 18 with Robert Taylor, whom she would later marry.

In her off-hours from work as a cleaning woman, Taylor and her husband began frequenting the city's music clubs, where she eventually made her way onto the stage singing with blues bands.

Impressed by her skill, blues artist and composer Willie Dixon helped Taylor sign a deal with the famed Chess Records, where the duo would put out the release Wang Dang Doodle — one of her most famous songs.

Taylor went on to perform around the globe alongside legends such as B.B. King and Muddy Waters. After Chess went out of business in the 1970s, she moved to Alligator Records. She shared in a best traditional blues recording Grammy Award in 1984 for the compilation album Blues Explosion and was nominated several other times over the years. For a time, she also operated a nightclub in Chicago.

"Blues is my life," she once said. "It's a true feeling that comes from the heart, not something that just comes out of my mouth. Blues is what I love, and blues is what I always do."

Taylor continued to release albums periodically over the years and was a stalwart on the blues touring circuit, except in 1988 after being seriously injured in a van accident while on tour and in 2003 after she suffered a heart attack and remained in a coma for about a month. In both instances, she returned to the stage just a year or two later. Her most recent performance took place a month ago at the Blues Music Awards in Memphis.

Taylor is survived by her second husband, Hays Harris, her daughter, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

With files from The Associated Press