She was born in Florida to a Minister father and a missionary mother. As a teenager she went to work for R&B star Big Maybelle as a maid. Big Maybelle encouraged Harris’ talent, and in 1960 she recorded her first single, "Taking Care of Business" b/w "Yesterday's Kisses," for Douglas Records. Via her association with Big Maybelle, Harris met the mighty Solomon Burke, who recommended her to his producer Bert Berns.
In 1963 Harris recorded a slowed down version of Solomon Burke's hit of the year before, "Cry to Me", produced by the original record's producer, Bert Berns, and released on the Jubilee record label. Taken at a slower pace, Harris's rendition turned the song into a Billboard Hot 100 number 23 hit, with a corresponding number 10 listing on the R&B chart, and it became a deep soul classic. A total of three further singles including a reissue of "Cry to Me" were released on Jubilee, also produced by Bert Berns, with "His Kiss", which was released on January 4, 1964, another deep soul ballad, reaching the lower part of the Billboard Pop and R&B charts.
In 1964, Harris switched record labels to Sansu, a New Orleans label, where she was produced by Allen Toussaint. Her recording with Sansu produced ten singles. Of those, only "Nearer to You", an atmospheric, dramatic soul ballad, now considered one of the milestones of deep soul, achieved U.S. national chart success (Billboard number 85). However, practically all of her recordings for Sansu, uptempo tunes and ballads alike, featuring Toussaint's raw yet sophisticated Southern soul arrangements behind Harris's rich, distinctive vocal, are considered prime specimens of the classic soul era; some notable recordings were "I'm Evil Tonight", a beat ballad favored in Northern soul circles; "I Don't Want to Hear It", "Show It" and "Twelve Red Roses", stirring up-tempo tracks; "Can't Last Much Longer" and "What'd I Do Wrong", emotive deep soul ballads.
Despite the fact that their five year association yielded only a single hit, the 20 sides they did between August of 1965 and March of 1969 were of a consistently high quality, acting as a showcase for Toussaint's prodigious compositional talents and Harris’s brilliant singing. With her career at an impasse, Harris abruptly retired from performing in 1970. From there her legend grew, and rumors spread that she served as James Carr's road manager and even drove a tractor-trailer to make ends meet. In reality, Harris simply focused on raising her family, and while she shunned the music industry she continued singing in her church choir -- after settling in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1997, she even began offering vocal lessons. Still, Harris remained oblivious to the growing awe afforded her '60s output by soul aficionados, respect generated largely by an expanded U.K. reissue of the 1969 anthology Soul Perfection.
Westside Records in the UK has compiled all of her Jubilee, Sansu and SSS International recordings on the CD 'Betty Harris: Soul Perfection Plus' (the title is a reference to 'Soul Perfection', the collection of Sansu sides released by Action in the UK in the late 60's). The sound and the annotation are outstanding, and the opportunity to track the progress of an artist so talented yet so little known is invaluable. Many other Harris tracks appear on various comps, including the fantastic 'New Orleans Funk' and 'Saturday Night Fish Fry' collections from Soul Jazz in the UK.
In 2005, Harris returned to the music industry after a long absence. Betty has been in a decades long copyright battle over the ownership of her music. Allen Toussaint and Marshall Sehorn never paid her the royalties due her, and she owns the sound recording copyrights for all the songs she recorded with Sansu, including "Nearer to You." She toured Australia in 2006 and appeared on the TV show RocKwiz, where she performed "Cry to Me", and a duet of "Love Lots of Lovin'" with the Australian singer John Paul Young. She has made several public appearances in the U.S. and Europe, including the 2007 Porretta Soul Festival in Italy, and has recorded a new album, Intuition.
A regular visitor to the UK, her last concert was at the Blackpool Winter Gardens in June 2022. Her last concert in the US was at Antone’s, Austin, Texas during July 2022. It’s nice to know that a great performer from the classic soul era is still ‘on song’ and entertaining the masses.
(Edited from Wikipedia, funky16corners & All Music) (*other sources give 1941 or 1943 as birth year)