Bman's Blues Report

Shirley Brown (born January 6, 1947, West Memphis, Arkansas) is an American soul singer, best known for her million-selling single "Woman to Woman" which was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1975. Brown was born in West Memphis, but was raised in Madison, Illinois, where she started singing in church when she was nine years old. Early experience singing gospel gave her a powerful but expressive voice likened to Aretha Franklin. Albert King discovered her at age 14, singing in the Harlem Club in Brooklyn, Illinois. Young Shirley went on the road with King for nine years. While King made sure she had a tutor, Brown often cut her classes to work with the band. By 1972, Shirley was living in East St. Louis, Illinois, where she made her first record for the Abet label called, "I Ain't Gonna Tell" and "Love Built on a Strong Foundation". Bandleader Oliver Sain produced the record; Sain worked with King on his first hit record ten years earlier. By 1974, K...

This release by Shirley Brown is just a blast. Shirley is backed by Donald "Duck" Dunn and the Memphis Horns. There just isn't a lot of good music like this being released. I thoroughly loved listening to this release and was thrilled to see that there were 5 bonus tracks added to the original line up. If you like blues/soul singers who don't need booty shakers dancing along side to make them interesting, then you're in for a treat! Now I'm not saying that you won't be moving in your seat or dancing around the room while listening to it... only that you don't need an entourage of crap going on while you listen to it. This is a recording to buy!

CONCORD MUSIC GROUP’S STAX REMASTERS SERIES CONTINUES ON SEPTEMBER 13 WITH REISSUES FROM RUFUS THOMAS, THE DRAMATICS, AND SHIRLEY BROWN Rufus Thomas’s Do the Funky Chicken , Shirley Brown’s Woman to Woman , and the Dramatics’ Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get are fortified with bonus tracks LOS ANGELES, Calif. — In 1968, on the heels of the label’s severance from Atlantic Records, Stax Records president Al Bell decided to initiate a massive 28-LP release program that would auger the label’s return to the top. The initiative fostered a new generation of Stax hitmakers including the Dramatics and Shirley Brown. And, it proved an artistically and commercially fertile time for Stax veteran Rufus Thomas. On September 13, 2011, Concord Music Group , as part of its Stax Remasters series , will reissue Rufus Thomas’s Do the Funky Chicken , the Dramatics’ Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get and Shirley Brown’s Wom...