Betty Everett (November 23, 1939 – August 19, 2001) – Prophecy (1977)

One of the great singer's rare 70s singles was this phenomenal disco jam, arranged by "Tom Tom 84" Washington and written by Lamont Dozier.

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Betty Everett was a singer and pianist who went to #1 R&B in 1964 with her classic hit “The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss).”

Born in Greenwood, Mississippi, when she was nine years old she began singing gospel and playing the piano in church. After graduating from high school, she moved to Chicago in 1957, intent on becoming a professional singer.

Everett released a half-dozen singles on small Chicago labels including Cobra, C.J. Records, and One-derful before she was signed to Vee-Jay Records in 1963. For her second Vee-Jay single she covered Dee Dee Warwick’s recent release “You’re No Good.” The label’s A&R head Calvin Carter, who signed her, had brought the record back from New York City on a trip looking for new songs that his artists could cover. It reached #51 on the Billboard Hot 100 (which only published one unified national chart from November 30, 1963 to January 23, 1965, having discontinued its Hot R&B Singles chart due to massive crossover between the two after the rise of Motown).

She covered another recent record that Carter had found in NYC for her next single, “It's in His Kiss,” released in June, 1963 by Merry Clayton to little fanfare. Everett thought it was a silly song and was reluctant to record it, but eventually agreed. She cut the track almost sixty years ago on November 26, 1963, three days after her 24th birthday. It also featured Vee-Jay’s in-house backing vocalists The Opals, teenagers Rose E. Kelley, Myra Tilliston, and Rose “Tootsie” Addison.

Re-titled “The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss),” and released in January, 1964, it was a huge hit, climbing to #6 on the Hot 100 and #1 R&B on the Cashbox charts. It would be memorably covered again by Linda Lewis in 1975 and Cher in 1990.

Vee-Jay re-released her debut solo album which had first been issued the previous year as You’re No Good, re-titled It’s in His Kiss. To follow it up, she recorded an album of duets with former Impressions lead singer Jerry Butler, Delicious Together (1964). In his autobiography Only the Strong Survive (2000), Butler compared her effortless vocals to Gladys Knight’s. The LP’s first single “Let It Be Me” was another big hit, peaking at #5 on the Hot 100 and spending three weeks atop on the Cashbox R&B charts.

Everett never again enjoyed this level of success, although her next few singles were top quality. In April, 1965 she released the upbeat Motown-esque “The Real Thing,” co-written by Nick Ashford, Valerie Simpson, and Jo Armstead, b/w the heartfelt love song “I’m Gonna Be Ready,” written by Van McCoy. The single inexplicably failed to chart.

Ashford, Simpson and Armstead wrote one more song for Everett, “Too Hot To Hold” which was released later in 1965 (b/w “I Don’t Hurt Anymore”) and also did not chart.

She left Vee-Jay in 1966, and signed with ABC Records. Her fourth and final single for them was “Love Comes Tumbling Down” with the beautiful “People Around Me” on its B-side. The latter was written and produced by Al Smith and arranged and conducted by Johnny Pate. It continued her string of chart misses.

In 1972 she sang the gorgeous, heartfelt theme song from Black Girl, a film released that November by the independent distributor Cinerama Releasing Corporation. It was directed by Ossie Davis, and starred Leslie Uggams and Louise Stubbs. The track featured Sonny Stitt on sax.

Her stunning rare disco jam “Prophecy” (1977) was written by Lamont Dozier, arranged by Tom Washington (aka Tom Tom 84), and produced by Archie Russell for Monument Records’ small Sound Stage 7 imprint. It was originally released as the B-side to the slow jam “Secrets,” written by Jesse Boyce.

“Prophecy” was reissued by Barely Breaking Even Music in 2016, when it was included on their Disco Love Vol. 4 release, compiled by Al Kent.

In 2018, the talented DJ Juan Negron released his excellent J*ski Extended Mix of “Prophecy.”

Everett launched a short-lived comeback in the late eighties, which resulted in “The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss)” being used in the closing credits of the hit film Mermaids (1990) and its star Cher re-recording it, a version which went to #1 in the UK. Unfortunately, due to health issues Everett was unable to capitalize on the renewed interest in her career. She died at her home in Wisconsin a decade later, gone much too soon at age 61.

Happy Heavenly Birthday to the great Betty Everett.

Further info:

“Betty Everett, 61, of 'The Shoop Shoop Song',” obituary, The New York Times, August 23, 2001.

“Betty Everett,” obituary, The Guardian, August 27, 2001.

“Betty Everett: there’ll come a time,” by Ayana Contreras, DarkJive.com, August 18, 2011.

#soul #funk #disco #BettyEverett