Betty Wright

The youngest of seven children, Betty Wright (born December 21st, 1953 in Miami, Florida) first went on stage at the age of two with her siblings in a gospel group called Echoes Of Joy. They sang together from the mid-1950s until the early 1960s, with Wright taking lead vocals on some recorded tracks before being signed as a solo artist to record the singles “Thank You Baby” and “Paralysed” when she was 12. It gained her much local attention and she made her first album, My First Time Around, at 14, achieving her first hit “Girls Can't Do What Guys Do” soon afterwards. Another hit, the sensual “Pure Love” followed when she was 16. At 17 she released “Clean Up Woman”, which became her signature song, an R&B record that achieved crossover success in the pop chart, while her trademark power vocals developed further with “Babysitter” – her first self-written hit – followed by “Let Me Be Your Lovemaker”, “Where Is The Love?”, “Shoorah Shoorah” and the soul ballad “Tonight Is The Night”. Wright subsequently diversified, duetting with Alice Cooper on “No Tricks” in 1978 and touring with Bob Marley; and in 1981 she had a hit with a Stevie Wonder song, “What Are You Gonna Do With It?” In 1985 she formed Miss B Records and became the first black woman to score a gold disc on her own label with Mother Wit – notable for the hits “No Pain No Gain” and “After The Pain”. Doubling up as one third of a prolific record production trio alongside Steve Greenberg and Michael Mangini, she laid the foundations for hits by Tom Jones, Diane Birch and Joss Stone in the early 21st century. She continued to tour and self-release records while collaborating with other artists, including Lil Wayne and Gloria Estefan and later acted as vocal coach for Joss Stone and Jennifer Lopez on the TV series Making The Band. In 2011 she released her first album in 10 years, Betty Wright: The Movie, which included collaborations with Lil Wayne, The Roots and Snoop Dogg. She died peacefully at home on May 10th, 2020 at the age of 66 following a short battle with cancer.