Marlena Shaw
b. Marlina Burgess, 1944, New Rochelle, New York, USA. Shaw was basically a cocktail lounge-type jazz singer who occasionally ventured onto the soul music charts. She began her career in 1963, and was discovered by Chess Records in 1966 while singing on the Playboy lounge circuit. On Chess's Cadet subsidiary, under the aegis of producer Richard Evans, she performed vocal counterparts of jazz hits such as Mercy Mercy Mercy (number 33 R&B, number 58 pop) by Cannonball Adderley and Wade In The Water by Ramsey Lewis Trio. Chess released two albums and a bunch of singles of Shaw before she left the company in 1968. For the next five years she performed periodically with Count Basie, and after signing with Blue Note in 1972 built a solidly-based jazz recording career. Her most popular album for the company was WHO IS THIS BITCH, ANYWAY? , but her last Blue Note release in 1976, JUST A MATTER OF TIME, saw a more disco-driven result that yielded a modest chart single, It's Better Than Walkin' Out (number 74 R&B). A move to Columbia in 1977 got her biggest chart success with SWEET BEGINNINGS and a hit single Go Away Little Boy (number 21 R&B), a remake of Steve Lawrence's Go Away Little Girl. From an album for South Bay, LET ME IN YOUR LIFE, she achieved her last chart single, Never Give Up On You (number 91 R&B).