Barbara Lewis (born February 9, 1943) – I'm So Thankful (1973)
Barbara Lewis (born February 9, 1943) – I'm So Thankful (1973)
Lewis' final single released on a major label before she left the music industry for years, this superb soul gem was recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Alabama.
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Singer/songwriter Barbara Lewis went to #1 R&B in 1963 with her classic “Hello Stranger,” the first single off her debut album, considered by many to be one of the most haunting, memorable songs of the sixties.
Born and raised in Michigan, she began writing songs when she was nine years old. As a teenager she started working with Ollie McLaughlin, a Detroit DJ and record producer who went on to own several small record labels. He produced her first single in 1962 which was a regional hit.
Lewis wrote all the songs that appeared her debut LP the following year in 1963. It included the smash hit “Hello Stranger” which went to #1 R&B for two weeks that June, and reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100. Chuck Barksdale of the Dells was at Chess Studios when she recorded it, and when he heard the completed track, jumped up and down yelling, “It’s a hit, it’s a hit!”
Her other big record dropped in 1965, the Van McCoy-penned beautiful love song “Baby I’m Yours.” It sold a million copies and went to #5 R&B and #11 Pop.
On August 8, 1969, Lewis had a chilling brush with infamy when she and British actress Joanna Pettet had lunch with Sharon Tate at her rented house on Cielo Drive, hours before Tate’s eventual murder there by members of the Manson Family.
In 1970 she released The Many Grooves Of Barbara Lewis LP on Stax, a classic album with a rawer sound than her previous work that should be in any soul lover’s collection.
The superb soul gem “I’m So Thankful” (1973) was her final single before she left the music industry for years. It was released on Warner Brothers subsidiary Reprise Records, and recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Sheffield, Alabama.
Her longtime collaborator Ollie McLaughlin produced it, with strings arranged by Mike Lewis, who also arranged many records for artists on Henry Stone’s labels like Betty Wright, Timmy Thomas and Latimore. "I'm So Thankful" was co-written by Roscoe Dorsey and Irene Perkins, whose husband Al had originally recorded the song a year earlier for Hi Records.
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