Laura Lee (born March 9, 1945) – Love And Liberty (1972)

This powerful feminist anthem was the follow up single to Lee's #11 R&B hit "Women's Love Rights," co-written and produced by William Weatherspoon.

Mar 10, 2024

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Laura Lee is a singer whose female empowerment anthems became part of the soundtrack to the women’s rights movement in the early 1970s.

See our earlier posts on Lee and producers Brian and Eddie Holland for more on her musical career.

Laura Lee (born March 9, 1945) – I Need It Just As Bad As You (1974)

March 10, 2023

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Lee’s first single after signing with Holland-Dozier-Holland’s Hot Wax label was the sex-positive female empowerment anthem “Women’s Love Rights,” released in late 1971. It was produced by former Motown songwriter/producer William Weatherspoon, who co-wrote it with Angelo Bond. The record struck a chord at a moment when the emerging women’s liberation movement was on the march, and hit #11 R&B, crossing over to the top-forty at #36 on the Billboard Hot 100.

It became the title track to her 1972 debut LP on Hot Wax, also produced by Weatherspoon. Other standout cuts included the beautiful ballad “That's How Strong My Love Is,” written by Roosevelt Jamison, and the follow up single to “Women’s Love Rights,” the even more explicitly feminist anthem “Love And Liberty.” Co-written by Weatherspoon and Bond, it reached #23 R&B but just barely cracked the Hot 100 at #94.

Lee appeared as a gospel singer in the 1973 Blaxploitation crime film Detroit 9000, singing several numbers at a fundraiser for Michigan’s first Black candidate for Governor that was held up by armed intruders.

In 1974, she released what would turn out to be her final album for nearly a decade, and the last secular LP she ever recorded. I Can't Make It Alone was produced by Holland-Dozier-Holland and issued on their Invictus label. The album featured the sex-positive masterpiece “I Need It Just As Bad As You.” Its epic, beautiful slow jam “Every Little Bit Hurts” was written by Ed Cobb, and “We've Come Too Far To Walk Away” was a heartfelt love song co-written by the Holland brothers.