Like so many people, my first Betty Wright record I bought was Clean Up Woman, the same year I started DJing in 1971. It's hard to imagine now how few TV channels we had to choose from back then, but just flicking the channels by chance, I just happened to catch the 2nd half of this same performance of Betty Wright on the Mike Douglas show:
It was wonderful to see her live & not lip sink, she was great... but even though they don't show them here, the Mike Douglas show audience is pretty dry. I used to watch Soul Train religiously EVERY Saturday morning but they didn't have her on until the following year. Even though the song was no longer new, it was still great & even though it wasn't live Soul Train was really the place I wanted to see her:
There was another track I was championing of hers from the same album I Love The Way You Love, more of the club hit at the time. It wasn't for a few more years until I got to actually see her live in person, as I've mentioned before at the Beacon theater, in an all star show along side the Stylistics, Mandrill, & Bohannon, where she performed Where Is The Love. I really love her performance & it looked a lot like this clip:
Ironically Where Is The Love is the lead song of my next batch of Bandcamp Mr. K edits coming out this Fri, + my next 12" vinyl Edit By Mr. K on Most Excellent, the Garage classic One Step Up, Two Steps Back... out any minute now. Betty Wright exemplifies 70's Miami Soul, thank you for all the years of music & soul you've given us, the fabulous Betty Wright, RIP, Danny
