Betty Wright - A Profile - Part 1/3: The Playlist

Betty Wright (Bessie Regina Norris 21 Dec 1953 - 10 May 2020) would have been 69 today. She was born in Miami, FL, one of seven children and sang in the family gospel group Echoes Of Joy aged two in 1956 until 1965.  Her siblings include Milton Wright, Phillip 'Leno' Wright (aka Leno Phillips), Jeanette Wright-Black (aka Holloway aka Williams), and Charles A. Wright.

Story has it that Betty sang "Summertime" in a record store owned by Johnny Pearsall, who also owned a fledgling label Deep City with Willie Clarke, and signed her when she was just 12 years old. He released her first single "Good Lovin'" / "Paralyzed" in July 1967 on Deep City. Numero Group released a four track EP, "Deep City Recordings", in Jun '22 with both sides along with another single "Mr. Lucky" and "Thank You Baby" released on Solid Soul and the only release for the label which presumably was related to Deep City.

Her first album, "My First Time Around", was recorded in 1968 on Atco which produced her first hit single "Girls Can't Do What The Guys Do" on Alston (presumably Alston leased the album for release by Atco?). After a few more minor hits she hit the big time in 1971 with "Clean Up Woman" which would prove to be the biggest hit of her career reaching #1 R&B and #6 hot 100 at the tender age of just 17. That song didn't register across the pond and she had to wait until 1975 when two songs entered the UK Top 40 pop chart with "Shoorah Shooorah" (#27) and "Where Is The Love" (#25) co-written with Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch (KC & The Sunshine Band) for which she won a Grammy for Best R&B Song. It was a period where the proto-disco 'Miami Sound" was crossing over driven, in the main, by KC & The Sunshine Band.

Betty recorded 19 studio albums between 1968 and 2014. She died from cancer in 2020 aged 66 and a short tribute was done at the time which included her singles discography but not her albums so it's well overdue rectifying that.

As well as recording her own material she featured and sang backing vocals on many other artists recordings, far too many to list them all, which included: Gwen McCrae, Timmy Thomas ("You're The Song") , Milton Wright, Latimore, Stevie Wonder ("All I Do"), Gloria Estefan,  Richard Dimples Fields,("She's Got Papers") Angie Stone, Joss Stone (she produced "Mind Body & Soul" which was nominated for a Grammy) and many more.

A single post would be too unwieldy, therefore two separate parts have been created, with this section giving some background and a playlist below.

Check out parts 2 & 3 here:

Part 2: The Singles

A full discography of her singles including links to YouTube for those that are available.

Part 3: The Albums

A full discography of her studio albums. All but three of her albums are available to buy digitally and are on Spotify. This post contains links to Spotify to listen and Amazon/Apple to buy.

Albums Discography

1968 - My First Time Around [Atco #SD-33-260]

1972 - I Love The Way You Love [Alston #DS-33-388]

1973 - Hard To Stop [Alston #SD 7026]

1974 - Danger High Voltage [Alston #4400]

1976 - Explosion! [Alston #4402]

1977 - This Time For Real [Alston #4406]

1978 - Betty Wright Live [Alston #4408]

1979 - Betty Travelin' In The Wright Circle [Alston #4410]

1981 - Betty Wright [Epic #JE 36879]

1983 - Wright Back At You [Epic #FE 38558]

1986 - Sevens [First String Records #F-9644]

1988 - Mother Wit [Ms.B Records #Ms.B-3301]

1989 - 4u2njoy [Ms.B Records #Ms.B-3308]

1990 - Passion & ComPassion [Ms.B Records #Ms.B-3318]

1992 - All The Way Live [Permanent Records #PERM LP/CD 0007] 

1994 - B-Attitudes [Ms.B Records #72588-2]

2001 - Fit for A King [Ms.B Records #MSBCD 2112]

2011 - Betty Wright: The Movie – with the Roots [Ms.B Records #0731519012]

2014 - Living...Love...Lies [Ms.B Records]

Betty Wright has recorded just so much good music it was very difficult narrowing it down so I've tried to limit the playlist to a maximum of two/three tracks per album. Some of her later and more recent material, which may have gone overlooked (especially "Fit For A King" album), is too good to omit.

There are three of her albums that are not available on Spotify (or currently available digitally) which contain tracks that would have been considered. At least four great tracks on Betty Wright (1981)  "I Like Your Lovin'", "Give A Smile", "Make Me Love The Rain" and the killer "One Bad Habit" and another couple from "Wright Back At You" (1983) "I Promise You" and "Show Me" but most of the remainder of the album suffered from that horrible 80s production. 

The other album not available digitally is a live album released in 1992 "All The Way Live" which is her performance at the Hammersmith Odeon, London, in Oct. 1989.

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