Yesterday, my post on ‘I’ll Fly Away’ put me in mind of Randy Crawford and so today the post is devoted to her songs. Veronica “Randy” Crawford, Macon, Georgia) is an American jazz and R&B singer. She has been more successful in Europe than in the United States, where she has not entered the Billboard as a solo artist. However, she has appeared on the Hot 100 singles chart twice.
Crawford first performed at club gigs from Cincinnati to Saint Tropez, but made her name in mid 1970s in New York, where she sang with jazzmen George Benson and Cannonball Adderley. She signed with Columbia Records and released her first single, “Knock On Wood” / “If You Say the Word” in 1972. Adderley invited her to sing on his album, Big Man: The Legend Of John Henry (1975). During a brief tenure at Columbia Records, Crawford recorded “Don’t Get Caught in Love’s Triangle”.
She led R&B veterans the Crusaders on the transatlantic hit “Street Life” (1979). A specially re-recorded version was featured in the soundtrack for the films Sharky’s Machine and Jackie Brown, and appeared in commercials in the early 2000s. She later recorded for Warner Bros Records. Crawford was named the ‘Most Outstanding Performer’ at the 1980 Tokyo Music Festival. Crawford also recorded the love theme (“People Alone”) for the film soundtrack of The Competition on MCa Records in 1980.
Her follow-up solo efforts included “One Day I’ll Fly Away” (1980) and “You Might Need Somebody” (1981), which became soul standards, and a cover of the Tony Joe White song, popularised by Brook Benton, “Rainy Night in Georgia”. The album, Secret Combination (1981) stayed on the UK Album Chart for sixty weeks, after which her profile dipped, despite a return to the UK Top Ten with “Almaz” in 1986. In June 1981, Crawford also released another hit, “One Hello”, from the album Windsong. She continued to record for Warner Bros through the 1990s, but was unable to score either a big R&B hit or major crossover success.
Naked And True (1995) brought Crawford back to her roots: it included George Benson’s “Give Me The Night”, and confirmed her soul heritage by featuring Funkadelic members Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell and the Fred Wesley Horns. Crawford recorded a live session with Joe Sample on July 24, 2007, at Abbey Road Studios for Live from Abbey Road. The episode she shared with David Gilmour and Amos Lee was screened on the Sundance Channel in the US and Channel 4 in the UK.
