Whether she’s baring her soul on a heart-rending ballad, purring sensually on a bedroom slow-jam or letting out a full-throated hollah on a slab of dance floor funk, Gwen McCrae always pours blood, sweat and tears into her performances. The Florida singer is without doubt one of soul music's unsung heroines. Although she has not enjoyed the world renown of some of her more famous contemporaries – like, for example, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight and Patti Labelle - in terms of her vocal ability and talent, she's second to none. Her voice is one of the very best soul music has produced: earthy and sensual with an alluring hint of vulnerability. It’s for these unique qualities and the classic records she cut in the ‘70s and early ‘80s that Gwen is revered by soul fans all over the world.
In 1965 when she was 22 she met and married George McCrae, an aspiring singer who had spent time in the US Navy. One night in the late-‘60s, Betty Wright - a teenaged singer signed to the Atlantic-distributed Alston label - together with guitarist, Willie "Little Beaver" Hale, dropped in on one of Gwen and George's performances. Greatly impressed, Betty told producer Brad Shapiro about the McCraes and he went to see the duo at a Fort Lauderdale venue called The Flying Machine. After the show, Shapiro went backstage and said he could help them get a record deal.
He took them to Henry Stone's TK company, where Gwen and George cut three 45s for TK's Alston imprint in 1970. Gwen's first recordings were leased to Columbia, who issued Gwen's debut single, Lead Me On - a cover of an old Bobby Bland tune - in 1970.
It was three years before Gwen was in the charts again, cracking the US R&B Top 20 with the Ed Townsend-penned For Your Love. By that time, she had returned to the TK fold and had signed to the company's Miami-based Cat subsidiary (this followed a one-off 45 on another TK imprint called Glades). As a result of For Your Love’s success, Cat issued Gwen's self-titled debut LP in 1973, though it didn’t chart nationally. After Gwen enjoyed a minor hit with It's Worth The Hurt in 1974 (66 US R&B), a year later1975 she found herself straddling the top of the US R&B charts with Rockin' Chair (also a 9 pop hit). With its sultry vocals and infectious chorus, the record spent 20 weeks on the Stateside charts and was certified gold. The million-selling hit also garnered Gwen a Grammy nomination in the category of Best R&B Vocal Performance. Attempting to capitalise on her newfound fame, Gwen's record company revamped her debut LP. Retitled Rockin' Chair (Gwen’s 1 hit had been added to the record), the album proved a smash and rocketed into the US R&B albums chart, peaking at 18.
More Billboard R&B hits followed for Gwen in the shape of Love Insurance (16) in 1975, and in 1976 Cradle Of Love (53) and Damn Right It's Good (72). She also enjoyed a hit duet the same year with husband George entitled Winners Together Or Losers Apart (44), culled from an album called Together (33 US R&B).
Chart action proved elusive after this, despite three strong albums for Cat: namely Something So Right (1976), Let's Straighten It Out (1978) and her TK swansong, Melody Of Life (1979), an album produced by Miami soulstress, Betty Wright, and which included Gwen's final single for Cat, All This Love That I'm Givin'.
Despite getting on well with label boss, Henry Stone, Gwen felt she had a raw deal at Cat and left the company in search of a new recording home. She moved north to New York, where Atlantic Records' boss, Ahmet Ertegun, took a personal interest in reviving her career. Gwen performed a showcase for Atlantic and impressed Ertegun, who signed her to his company in 1980.
On her self-titled Atlantic debut album (Gwen McCrae), Gwen joined forces with rising disco/club producer, Kenton Nix, who had previously made a name for himself as a writer/producer for the Big Apple-based Westside label. Gwen enjoyed working with Nix, who put together a studio band that comprised several members of the disco-funk aggregation, Crown Heights Affair. The album was released in 1981 and yielded the dance floor classic, Funky Sensation, Gwen's first chart smash for five years (since then the record has been sampled many times, most notably by rappers Afrika Bambaataa, Big Daddy Kane and Biz Markie). But although the record broke into the R&B Top 30 (stalling at 22), it failed to act as a springboard for the album's success. Another dance-oriented single, Poyson, was issued from the album, but failed to dent the charts.
Despite being disappointed that Funky Sensation hadn't been an even bigger hit, Gwen, then 39, went back in the studios in 1982 with producer/keyboard player, Webster Lewis. What resulted was On My Way, a polished soul album recorded in Hollywood using the cream of the LA session fraternity - including Stevie Wonder's bass player, Nate Watts, and drummer, James Gadson, who had risen to fame as sticks man for Charles Wright and The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band in the late-'60s and early-'70s. The album's keystone was the Willie Hutch-penned Keep The Fire Burning, which with its driving groove and pulsating bass line was tailor made for the dance floor. Despite its commercial appeal, the record only managed 60 in the Billboard charts. In 1983, Atlantic released another strong dance cut from the album, Doin' It (also penned by Motown maestro, Willie Hutch), but it too struggled to make any chart headway.
After leaving Atlantic in 1983 – where she felt she was poorly promoted - Gwen put her own soulful spin on Lee Michaels’s 1971 US pop hit, Do You Know What I Mean, a one-off 45 for the Miami-based Black Jack label. Despite suffering poor distribution, the record reached the lower rungs of the US R&B charts in 1984.
Following this, Gwen took time out from the music business and concentrated bringing up her children. She also went back to earning a living from nursing.
Meanwhile, the “Rare Groove� scene that emerged in UK clubs in the late-'80s re-activated interest in Gwen’s back catalogue and put her back in the spotlight. In particular, All This Love That I'm Giving - a flop at the time of its release back in 1980 - was reissued and grazed the UK pop charts in 1988 (63). Five years later, a re-recording of the song (attributed to Music & Mystery featuring Gwen McCrae) fared even better, rising to 36.
After the single Generate Love for Dynamix II in 1992, in 1996 Gwen returned to the studios to cut Psychic Hotline for Goldwax, her first album since On My Way fourteen years earlier. Gwen's ninth long player, Girlfriend's Boyfriend, followed for Ichiban in 1997. Two years later, Still Rockin' was issued on US indie, Phat Sound.
Interest in Gwen's old records - which have become eagerly sought after by collectors - has also been stimulated by the appearance of some of her classic Atlantic tracks on WSM's compilation series, Natural High.
More recently, Gwen - who’s also an Evangelist minister - issued a critically acclaimed gospel set, I'm Not Worried, for the Georgia-based LewMar label in 2004. Shortly afterwards, she recorded a country-tinged ballad called Latter Day Rain, which featured on a new inspirational compilation.
A recent addition to DJ Pari's Hanover-based Soulpower roster (along with fellow soul veterans Marva Whitney, Martha High and Sweet Charles Sherrell), Gwen has been back on the road in 2005, performing her classic songs all over Europe.
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