Alex Henderson

Betty Wright
Betty Wright

So many of the great soul singers of the 1960s and 1970s—from Gladys Knight to Sam Cooke to the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin—received much of their musical training in the African-American church. And Betty Wright was no exception. Born Bessie Regina Norris in Miami on December 21, 1953, Wright was a pre-teen when she performed with her siblings in their gospel group the Echoes of Joy in the late 1950s and early 1960s. But like Knight, Franklin, Cooke and many other African-American singers with gospel backgrounds, Wright ended up shifting her focus to secular music—and when she was 12 in 1966, she recorded her secular R&B single, “Paralyzed,” for the Miami-based Deep City Records. 

Wright’s commercial breakthrough came in 1968 with the release of her debut solo album, My First Time Around, by Atco Records and her single, “Girls Can’t Do What the Guys Do.” At 14, Wright watched “Girls Can’t Do What the Guys Do” climb to #15 on Billboard’s R&B singles chart in the United States and #33 on the Billboard Hot 100. And she still wasn’t enough to vote when, at 17, she recorded her 1971 smash “Clean Up Woman”—which soared to #2 R&B in Billboard in the U.S. and #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and sold more than 1 million copies. Other hits followed, including “Babysitter” in 1972, “It’s Hard to Stop (Doing Something When It's Good to You)” and “Let Me Be Your Lovemaker” in 1973, “Secretary” in 1974, “Shoorah! Shoorah!” and “Tonight Is the Night” in 1975. In fact, two different versions of “Tonight Is the Night” became hits for Wright: the original studio version from 1975 was a #28 R&B hit on Billboard’s R&B singles chart, and the live version from 1978 rose to #11 on that chart.

From 1972-1979, Wright enjoyed a lucrative relationship with TK Records—the Hialeah, Florida-based independent label remembered for KC & the Sunshine Band, Gwen McCrae, Peter Brown, Foxy, T-Connection and other soul/disco stars. Wright was signed to Alston Records, a TK subsidiary, and she wrote her 1975 hit “Where Is the Love” (not to be confused with Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway’s 1972 smash) with Harry “KC” Casey and Richard Finch of KC & the Sunshine Band fame. It was also at TK that Wright was employed as a background vocalist on Brown’s 1978 smash “Dance With Me.”

But by the end of the 1970s, there was trouble in paradise: TK ran into financial problems, and Wright ended up moving to Epic Records—which, in 1981, released this self-titled album. Betty Wright was not a major departure from her albums for Alston/TK, and she still thrived on a blend of exuberant dance/funk numbers and romantic suol ballads.

Betty Wright is best known for the single “What Are You Going to Do With It,” an infectious gem written and produced by Stevie Wonder. A minor hit, the song peaked at #42 on Billboard’s R&B singles chart in the U.S. The rest of the album was produced by drummer Andre Fischer of Rufus & Chaka Khan fame, and an impressive list of musicians join Wright—including Phyllis Hyman, Cheryl Lynn, Teena Marie and Bobby Caldwell on background vocals, Kim Hutchcroft (a member of the band Seawind at the time) on saxophone and Tito Jackson (of Jackson 5 fame) on guitar. Some of the participants have strong jazz credentials, including saxophonist Ernie Watts, vibist Victor Feldman and bassist Jimmy Haslip (a founding member of the jazz-rock fusion band the Yellowjackets).

Wright, true to form, soars on the album’s energetic funk/dance grooves, which include “Give a Smile,” “Dancin’ on the One” and “Body Slang.” But she is no less convincing on the romantic quiet storm ballads “One Bad Habit (And That’s Loving You)” and “I Come to You” or the comfortable, relaxed mid-tempo selections “I Like Your Loving” and “Make Me Love the Rain.” This expanded edition of Betty Wright contains five bonus tracks, ranging from the 7” and 12” single versions of “What Are You Going to Do With It” to the 7” single version of “Body Slang” to the 1981 single “Goodbye You, Hello Him.” 

“One Bad Habit (And That’s Loving You)” was written by the late Richard “Dimples” Field, who also co-wrote “I Like Your Loving.” Field was an intriguing singer whose material could be pessimistic, melancholy and world-weary or dark-humored (“Your Wife Is Cheating On Us”), but he also had a spiritual side to his work—at the end of his 1982 hit “If It Ain’t One Thing, It’s Another,” Field followed a long list of complaints about the state of the world with a spoken monologue in which he encouraged listeners to check out the Bible if they were looking for some answers.

Field (who was 57 when he died of a stroke in 2000) and Wright enjoyed a very productive relationship in 1981, which was also the year in which she was featured on his hit “She’s Got Papers”—a soul ballad that found Field expressing a desire to leave his wife for another woman but worrying about how much a divorce would cost him. Wright, during a humorous but totally in-your-face spoken monologue, gave the wife’s point of view—and Philadelphia native Barbara Mason, known for her 1965 smash “Yes, I’m Ready,” offered the other woman’s perspective on a 1981 sequel ballad titled “She’s Got the Papers, But I Got the Man.” Mason was great at sequels: her 1974 hit “From His Woman to You” was a response to Shirley Brown’s “Woman to Woman.”

Although Wright enjoyed her greatest commercial success during the 1980s, she has kept busy in the 21^st Century as a singer, songwriter, arranger and producer. The 2000s found her working with younger artists such as Keyshia Cole, Kelly Clarkson, Lil Wayne and Joss Stone. And in 2011, Wright collaborated with Philadelphia-based alternative rappers the Roots on their album Betty Wright: The Movie—which had a hip-hop-influenced neo-soul outlook but was still quite faithful to her soul and gospel roots.

Wright, now 62, is a soul survivor. The Miami native has built a rich and rewarding catalogue over the years, and 1981’s Betty Wright is among the many solid albums she can be proud of.

—Alex Henderson, October 2016

Alex Henderson’s work has appeared in Billboard, Spin, Salon.com, Creem, The L.A. Weekly, AlterNet, JazzTimes, Jazziz, The Raw Story, Cash Box, HITS, CD Review, Skin Two, Black Beat, The Pasadena Weekly, Black Radio Exclusive (BRE), Music Connection, The New York City Jazz Record and many other well-known publications. Henderson (alexvhenderson.com) also contributed several thousand CD reviews to the popular Allmusic.com website and The All Music Guide’s series of music reference books.