Our Tribute to Gwen McCrae (1943-2025)

Although her career achieved only limited commercial success—often being reduced to the hit “Rockin’ Chair”—Gwen McCrae’s music has never failed to move soul enthusiasts.

Born in Pensacola, Florida on December 21, 1943, Gwen Mosley began performing in local clubs and singing with various groups from her adolescence. In 1963, she married—a week after meeting him!—a Navy member who was also a singer, George McCrae. At the end of his Navy service, he reformed his former band, the Jivin’ Jets, and Gwen joined the group. After a while, the couple left the band and started performing as a duo under the name George & Gwen. Settling in West Palm Beach, they performed in clubs in South Florida. It was there that they were discovered by Betty Wright, who directed them to Henry Stone.

Signed to one of his labels, Alston, they released several duo singles starting in 1969, which enjoyed a certain local success. The couple also worked as studio backing vocalists, notably appearing on records by Latimore and Swamp Dogg, as well as on a solo album by Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman. At the same time, she embarked on a solo career with a cover of Bobby Bland’s “Lead Me On,” produced by Steve Alaimo in Miami but released on Columbia, which allowed her to enter Billboard’s R&B chart. Among her other singles for Columbia is the first released version of the ballad “Always on My Mind,” later covered a few months on by Elvis Presley.

Due to a lack of success, the Columbia contract ended in 1973, and McCrae returned to one of Henry Stone’s labels, Cat, where she scored a few minor R&B hits while her husband’s career took off with “Rock Your Baby,” a composition that had originally been offered to her. She redeemed herself a few months later with a track in the same vein, “Rockin’ Chair,” also composed by Willie Clarke and Clarence Reid, which reached the top of the R&B chart and number 9 on the Hot 100. None of her subsequent records managed to replicate the feat, the best being the 44th spot on the R&B chart with “Winners Together or Losers Apart,” a duo with George, paradoxically at the time when the couple was divorcing.

When Cat closed its doors in the early 1980s, McCrae bounced back with Atlantic, where her “Funky Sensation” reached number 22 on the R&B chart. Despite the success of the following single, “Keep the Fire Burning,” a composition by Willie Hutch, commercial success remained elusive, and the Atlantic venture ended after two albums. After an isolated single in 1984 for the small Miami label Black Jack Records (which still charted on the R&B side), she ended her musical career.

It was the British public—lovers of northern soul and rare groove—that brought her out of retirement a few years later. Invited to perform at weekend events, she took the opportunity to release a few singles for local labels, and even an album, “Girlfriend’s Boyfriend,” in 1996. The same year, she also released an album in the United States, “Psychic Hot Line,” which appeared on the resurrected Godlwax label, followed three years later by a record produced by veteran Southern soul figure Frank-O Johnson on his own label, “Still Rock’in.” In 2004, she released a gospel album, “I’m Not Worried.” In the mid-2000s, an agency based in Germany, Soulpower, enabled her to tour regularly in Europe, and she notably made her debut in France at the Nouveau Casino. Very worried about the reception that this unfamiliar audience might give her, she broke down in tears after the first song when the audience joined her in singing “90% of Me Is You.”

Until 2009, she performed regularly in France, accompanied by the Soulpower All-Stars, but increasingly visible personal problems eventually brought an end to this comeback. An excellent live album, “Live In Paris At New Morning,” documents one of these concerts. In 2006, she released her last album, “Gwen McCrae Sings TK,” under the guidance of her former boss Henry Stone with the participation of her former colleagues Latimore, KC, Timmy Thomas, and Little Beaver. In 2012, after a concert in England, she suffered an attack that left her partially paralyzed, definitively ending her career, even though her music—regularly compiled and sampled (for example, by Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande on “Rain on Me” in 2020 or by Danger Mouse and Black Thought on “Sometimes” in 2022)—continues to captivate.