Sharon McMahan [2023] - Do I Deserve It Baby / When Will Love Come To Me [Hit and Run #HR 1548]

The name Sharan McMahan may not be familiar to many other than die hard rare soul followers. She is possibly best known to them for her 1973 Columbia single "Get Out Of My Life" which was a modern soul spin and reissued by Expansion in 2011. However, prior to that she released two singles for Ollie McLaughlin's Karen label in the 60s and wrote several songs recorded by others. 

A side from each of her Karen singles were reissued together on 7" single by Mark Bicknell's Big Man Records in Dec. last year. The A side was her 1966 single "Got To Find Another Guy" which was originally flipped with a version of Barbara Lewis' "Hello Stranger 66". The B side being her earlier 1964 single "Love Is Wonderful". She wrote both songs.

Garry J. Cape's Hit and Run label has another pair of recordings from her as one of two new singles from the label. The top side is her 1969, probably songwriter's demo, version of "Do I Deserve It Baby" later recorded by Barbara Lewis on her 1970 album "The Many Grooves Of Barbara Lewis". The flip side is an early recording of "When Will Love Come To Me" recorded in 1973 for a planned album for Columbia that never materialised, but the song was re-recorded for her 2007 CD only album "Somebody Else".

As always, the single is available to pre-order  from Garry via PayPal hitandrunsoul45@gmail.com with a release date of 31 Mar '23 (£15.00 each + £3.00 UK postage (good for 1-3 records), US postage £6.00 per order)

Sharon began writing songs from the age of 12 and auditioned for Ollie McLaughlin who, as well as Karen, owned a number of Detroit labels in the 60s and early 70s, Ruth named after his wife and Karen, Carla and Moira named after his daughters.

Only three singles are listed for the Ruth label released between 1959-62 and the last consisted of two songs written by McMahan recorded by Gracie Darnell which I believe may have been her first recorded song. 

Other McMahon songs have been recorded by Barbara Lewis, Deon Jackson, Johnnie Mae Matthews and even a song posted in The Three Degrees playlist a while back, "You're The Fool", which was on their 1970 Roulette album and the B side of the single "I'd Take You" and was also recorded by Etta James and Mavis Staples the same year and Madeline Bell in 1971.

Popular Mersey Beat group, The Searchers, had a UK #11 pop hit with one of her songs  "Someday We're Gonna Love Again" in 1966, also recorded, and was a big Northern Soul tune, by Barbara Lewis.

The song recorded by Johnnie Mae Matthews is a rare record, "I Have No Choice", that is huge on the UK rare soul scene (reissued by Hit And Run in 2020). It was also later recorded on an album, "Talking To The People", by Matthews son's band Black Nasty in 1973. An unreleased recording of the song turned up, which was thought at the time to be her daughter Audrey Matthews. A 1967 demo version recorded by Sharon McMahan has subsequently been released on 7" by Hayley Records around 2015/16. Audrey claims that it is not her singing on the first version, rather Sharon, and Sharon also claims it is not her either on the first version, and both version are different so it's still a mystery who recorded the one attributed to Audrey. You can listen to all four versions HERE.

In the 70s one of her songs, 'Love Is  The Key", was recorded by Benny Golson on his "I'm Always Dancin' To The Music", and Northern Soul followers may be interested to know that one Jodi Mathis was the female vocalist on this track under the name Mortonette Jenkins (she also went by Mortonette Stephens). We did an article about Ms Mathis HERE.

More recently McMahon had a song, "Do Over", included on a Preston Glass CD "Soul In The Rear View Mirror" in 2014.

Details

Rating:	8.4
Explicit:	N
Genre/Style:	Neo Soul
Format:	Single
Media:	7" Vinyl
Label:	Hit and Run
Cat No:	HR 1548
Date:	31/03/2023
Key/BPM:	N/A
Price:	£15

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