Legendary musician and future R&B Hall of Fame inductee Lester Chambers suffered injuries Saturday after he was attacked on stage for dedicating a song to Trayvon Martin.
According to police, the Civil-Rights-era leader of soul rock group The Chambers Brothers was performing at the Hayward-Russell City Blues Festival in downtown Hayward, California, when he was suddenly rushed by a woman identified as 43-year-old Dinalynn Andrews Potter after he dedicated Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready" to Trayvon Martin shortly following George Zimmerman's acquittal.
Chambers' wife Lola said the 73-year-old musician told audience members that Mayfield would have changed the lyric "there's a train a comin" to "there's a change a comin" were he alive today.
Friend and fellow musician Kurt Crowbar Kangas filed this report following the incident:
[T]he woman who attacked him was white and yelled something like “it’s all your fault” before she hit him, he went down hard but was halfway caught by Barren, thank God, she was subdued by Police and taken away while the para-medics came and took him to a local Hospital where he went thru a series of cat scans, no broken bones, the only injury for now is a 8″ scratch in the kidney area of his back and it’s starting to swell.
A photo posted on Facebook by Chambers' son Dylan showed Lester recovering at home with a large bruise on his back.
He reportedly suffered a bruised rib muscle and nerve damage as a result of the assault.
Andrews Potter was arrested and booked on suspicion of battery before being released. Chambers' family is looking to have police charge her with a hate crime.
Chambers was last in the news in March of 2012 after he came forward to reveal that unscrupulous record execs withheld royalties from him for years, forcing him to live on $1,200 a month.
[photos, mug shot via Facebook]