Memorial service held for Grammy-nominated R&B singer Angie Stone

Angie Stone poses as she walks down the red carpet during the 2009 Soul Train Awards taping at the Georgia World Congress Center, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2009 in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Gregory Smith)

AUSTELL, Ga. — A memorial service was held Friday for Grammy-nominated R&B singer Angie Stone, who was killed in a car crash.

The cargo van she was riding in flipped over and was then hit by a truck on March 1 near Montgomery, Alabama, music producer and Stone’s longtime manager Walter Millsap III has said. Everyone else in the van survived except Stone, who was 63. Online tributes from fans and fellow artists poured in after her death.

Friday’s service was held at Word of Faith Cathedral in Austell, Georgia, just west of Atlanta.

On Saturday, a service is planned at First Nazareth Baptist Church in Columbia, South Carolina.

Mourners filed into the massive Word of Faith Cathedral Friday, taking their seats around a gold casket surrounded by red roses.

“God is good even when life is not, and so we celebrate the life of our sister that has been well lived,” Bishop Dale Bronner, the church’s senior pastor, said in opening the service.

Filmmaker and entertainment executive Tyler Perry was among those who were scheduled to speak. Many acclaimed musical artists were scheduled to perform, including Kirk Franklin, Anthony Hamilton, Keke Wyatt, Tamela Mann, and the Walls Group.

The church-grown singer was born in Columbia, where music was always in her life since she was a child, Stone told the AP in 1999 interview. Her mother would sing around the house, and her father sang gospel and blues at establishments around Columbia.

Stone was a member of the all-female hip-hop trio The Sequence and known for the hit song “Wish I Didn’t Miss You.” She helped form The Sequence, the first all-female group on the hip-hop trailblazing imprint Sugar Hill Records, becoming one of the first female groups to record a rap song.

The group recorded “Funk You Up,” which has been sampled by numerous artists, including Dr. Dre.

After finding success in the early 1980s, Stone later joined the trio Vertical Hold before launching her solo career.

Stone created hits like “No More Rain (In This Cloud),” which reached No. 1 for 10 weeks on Billboard’s Adult R&B airplay chart; “Baby” with legendary soul singer Betty Wright, another No. 1 hit; and “Wish I Didn’t Miss You” and “Brotha.”

She found a sweet spot in the early 2000s as neo-soul begin to dominate the R&B landscape with the emergence of singers like Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Maxwell and D’Angelo.

Her 2001 album “Mahagony Soul” reached No. 22 on the Billboard 200, while 2007’s “The Art Of Love & War” peaked at No. 11.

A Soul Train Lady of Soul winner, Stone went on to showcase her acting chops with film roles in “The Hot Chick” starring Rob Schneider, “The Fighting Temptations,” which starred Cuba Gooding Jr. and Beyoncé, and “Ride Along” led by Ice Cube and Kevin Hart.

She also hit the Broadway stage as Big Mama Morton in “Chicago,” and she showcased her vulnerability on the reality TV shows “Celebrity Fit Club” and “R&B Divas: Atlanta.”

The Associated Press