Shirley Brown was born in West Memphis Arkansas on 6 Jan 1947 , but was brought up in St Louis where she sang in church and made a name for herself for her powerful solos.
In 1972 she cut ‘I Aint Gonna Tell’ on the Abet label (Mojo in the UK) , produced by Oliver Sain.

In 1974 her manager Albert King secured a deal for her on Stax’s Truth label. Her debut for the company ‘Woman To Woman’ was a No 1 R&B hit and is one of the most recognisable 70’s soul tracks with its monologue intro. After Shirley’s album and two more singles were released, Stax finally closed down in 1975.

Two years later Don Davis signed Shirley to his fledgling Arista label where she cut this fantastic album produced by Bettye Crutcher and Jeff Stewart in Memphis. Whilst the album did not sell as well as it should have , it is held in high esteem by her fans and is rated as probably her best album. The first single and album opener ‘Blessed Is The Woman’ is a beautiful ballad that should have been a hit and on every song Shirley is in fine voice. In fact all the nine songs from the original albums, plus the three non –album singles featured here maintain a consistently high quality that Shirley has never managed to replicate.

The line up of musicians includes some of the cream of southern soul ft Lester Snell on keyboards, Booker T’s Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn on Bass and Willie Hall on Drums with DJ Rogers on Background vocals on one track. These musicians provide the sympathetic backing that Shirley’s voice soars above showing both the power and at times the vulnerability of her voice. This is quite simply one of the last great Southern Soul albums ever recorded before the dreaded Synthesizers changed that sound forever.

In 1979 a re-launched Stax issue an album of unreleased material ‘For The Real feeling’ , she cut a one-off single for 20th Century a year later, and in 1984 recorded another of her best albums ‘Intimate Storm’ for Sound Town. After a few more one-off singles she signed to Malaco where she has remained for the last 18 years recording a further eight albums.

We are proud to present Shirley’s finest album on CD for the first time anywhere in the world, re-mastered from the original master tapes and sounding better than ever.
Laurence Prangell
Soul Brother Records
July 2007

Track list (click to hear tracks - one minute clips)