Gwen McCrae - my favorite of the two formidable Gwens in soul and funk.
She had two great phases and a pretty nice moment in the middle.
A titanic performance in the soul blasting Sixties-style (although actually released at the start of the '70s).
Jump ahead a decade to this postdisco / boogiefunk club classic
And this one, more straightforwardly uplifting, fantastic too.
Stubbs the Deejay had them but instead of just taping off him as I mostly did with the import 12-inches, for a series of cassettes I played endlessly, these were tunes I picked up myself on vinyl.
A much later MAW remix
Some fan's superextended mix
And then the pretty nice middle phase? That was when she was married to George McCrae and did some things similar to his smash "Rock Your Baby"
Right down to having "rock" in the title
I actually interviewed Gwen McCrae - this must have been around 1988.
She was warm, vivacious, everything you'd expect.
This was in London - presumably she was over promoting this single she had out on Rhythm King, since there seems to be no album around that time that she did.
