Barbara George (16 August 1942 – 10 August 2006) was an American R&B singer and songwriter.
Born Barbara Ann Smith and raised in the 9th ward New Orleans, George sang in a church choir, and began writing religious and secular material. This included I Know, with a melody based on the gospel song Just a Closer Walk with Thee, and lyrics directed, purportedly, at the husband she had married at 16.
She was discovered by singer/pianist Jessie Hill, who auditioned her for record producer Harold Battiste.. By this time she was married, and would record under the name Barbara George. Her first record on Battiste's AFO (All For One) record label was the catchy single, featuring a cornet solo by Melvin Lastie, which soon gained nationwide distribution by Sue Records. It topped the R&B charts and crossed over to the US pop listings, eventually peaking at No 3 in January 1962.
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| Juggy Murray with Barbara George |
It was later recorded by many other artists, including Freddie King, Paul Revere & the Raiders (1966), the Merseybeats, Ike and Tina Turner, and Bonnie Raitt (1972). A second single, You Talk About Love, only made the lower reaches of the Top 100. Once the record broke, Murray began courting George with a Cadillac and new wardrobe (which he surreptitiously funded with her own royalties) and eventually persuaded her to buy out the remainder of her AFO contract. Her only album, 1961's I Know (You Don't Love Me No More) contains 12 tracks, 11 of which credit George as the writer. After the release of this album she signed directly to Juggy Murray's Sue operation, joining a roster which included Ike and Tina Turner and Inez and Charlie Foxx.
However, George only issued four singles on Sue - "If You Think" and "Send For Me (If You Need Some Lovin')", another minor hit, "Recipe (For Perfect Fools)" and "Something's Definitely Wrong". Battiste, the New Orleans arranger who had been her mentor, rued the day she had decided to join Murray's label, telling John Browen, the author of Rhythm & Blues In New Orleans: "Fatherly advice is no good when you're fighting Cadillacs, fancy clothes and money." Unsuccessful releases and a punishing concert schedule saw her leave the company in 1964. She dropped out of music altogether to look after her three sons.
George resurfaced in 1967 on the New Orleans indie Seven B with the Eddie Bo-produced "Something You Got." When the single failed to return George to chart prominence, she retired from music to focus on raising her three sons, and apart from a pair of late-'70s releases on the local Hep' Me label, "Take Me Somewhere Tonight" and "This Is the Weekend," her recording career was over.
For much of the 1970s, George had problems with the alcohol, amphetamines and other drugs that had been common currency during her fleeting stardom. Later recordings such as the 1979 Senator Jones-produced "Take Me Somewhere Tonight", met with limited success, but she returned to the stage in the early 1980s on the nostalgia circuit before settling in Chauvin, Louisiana. She sang on the Willy DeVille album Victory Mixture (1990).
A born-again Christian, in later life George primarily restricted her musical pursuits to the church choir, but in 2001 she performed "I Know" at the funeral of longtime friend and fellow New Orleans great Ernie K-Doe. Diagnosed with a liver disease in the mid-1990s, she began an (unfinished) autobiography. After fighting Hepatitis C for more than a decade, George’s health grew worse due to a Lung infection. After being released from Terrebonne General Medical Center, her oldest son, Tevin George, took her to Bossier City to stay with him, where she died on August 10, 2006, less than a week shy of her 64th birthday.
George had three sons, Tevin, Albert, and Gregory. Tevin trained as a professional boxer and is listed as the United States 1986 winner of the Golden Gloves award, subsequently going on to perform in the Olympic Trials.
(Edited from Wikipedia, The Guardian, AllMusic & The Houma Courier)