By age 11, Miami, Florida-born *Bessie Regina Norris*, using the stage name Betty Wright, had been singing professionally with her six siblings. By 12, she had moved on from the sacred septet and permanently become Betty Wright, a secular solo act. She scored local hits with R&B recordings that led to an LP when she was 14. At 19, she cut the chart-busting crossover single “Clean Up Woman,” which established her as an international musical figure and prefigured the hit “Where Is the Love?” The latter earned her a Grammy for songwriting. That same LP, Danger High Voltage, hit forcefully with the Allen Toussaint number “Shoorah! Shoorah!” and Wright’s own sensual ballad “Tonight Is the Night.” Other of her own compositions, “Baby Sitter” and “Let Me Be Your Lovemaker,” featured her stratospherically high “whistle register” vocalizing, which helped earn her a passionate following as disco was on the ascent. Capitalizing on that popularity, Wright worked with a diverse array of collaborators, from Peter Brown to Alice Cooper to Dimples Fields. In 1985 she founded Miss B Records and within two years had become the first Black female artist to earn a gold record on her own label with the LP Mother Wit. There followed a productive phase that saw Wright emerge as a power player in the interlocking roles of collaborator, producer, arranger, and singing coach while touring internationally as a performer. In 2005, following her success working with such younger luminaries as Snoop Dogg and Lil Wayne on the collaboration-rich LP Betty Wright: The Movie, she collected another Grammy, this time for producing Joss Stone’s LP Mind Body & Soul. Though beset by cancer, she remained a stalwart trouper, appearing on the TV program Unsung only a month before she passed. She was 66 years old.—Michael Dolan

Betty Wright – Clean Up Woman
Single Released in November 1971 on Alston
Album: I Love The Way You Love
Album Released in 1972 on Alston

_Written By:_

Clarence Reid, Willie Clarke

_Produced By:_

Clarence Reid, Willie Clarke

_Performed By:_

Betty Wright

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