Marva Whitney
A Kansas City soul and funk singer billed as Soul Sister Number 1, featured vocalist in the James Brown Revue from 1967 to 1969, whose answer record "It's My Thing" reached number 19 on the R&B chart.
Kansas City to the James Brown Revue
Marva Ann Manning was born in Kansas City, Kansas on May 1, 1944. She sang from about age three in the family gospel group the Manning Gospel Singers, joined the Alma Whitney Singers at 16, began singing R&B in 1963 and was lead singer of Tommy Gadson and the Derbys until 1967. On Easter Sunday 1967 she auditioned for the James Brown Revue with the bandleader Pee Wee Ellis, and had to sit through two consecutive Brown shows. Her first single, "Your Love Was Good for Me" (Federal, June 1967), had a backing track already cut in the wrong key for her range.
She was the Revue's featured vocalist for about two and a half years, with at least 13 King singles and two LPs, touring the US, Europe, the Far East, North Africa and Vietnam. Her King singles include "If You Love Me" (1967), "Unwind Yourself" (January 1968), "Things Got to Get Better" (1968), a duet with Brown, "You Got to Have a Job (If You Don't Work, You Can't Eat)" (March 1969), and "It's My Thing" (June 1969). Her solo sessions were, she said, more spontaneous and last minute than Brown's own.
After Brown
She left Brown in 1969 or 1970 and moved to T-Neck, the Isley Brothers' label, where "This Is My Quest" (1970) was produced by Floyd Smith in Chicago. At Forte in 1972 she made "Daddy Don't Know About Sugar Bear", her biggest record after Brown, and later recorded as M-W-T Express and, with her brother Melvin Manning, as Marva and Melvin. She moved to Los Angeles around 1977 for about fifteen years and joined the JB Allstars in the late 1980s with Maceo Parker, Fred Wesley, Pee Wee Ellis and Lyn Collins.
In 2006 she made I Am What I Am with DJ Pari and Osaka Monaurail (RD Records, then Shout!), followed by "Soulsisters (Of the World Unite)", and toured Japan and Europe through 2009. When Brown died in December 2006 he had left instructions for her to sing at his funeral in Georgia, where she sang "Kansas City". She died on December 22, 2012 in Kansas City, Kansas, aged 68. AllMusic's Steve Huey, as quoted by Wikipedia, called her one of the rawest and brassiest divas in funk. Her records are heavily sampled in hip-hop, including "Unwind Yourself" in The 45 King's "The 900 Number" (1987) and Chad Jackson's "Hear the Drummer (Get Wicked)" (1990).
Albums
Songs
- It's My Thing (You Can't Tell Me Who to Sock It To) It's My Thing · 1969
Her answer record to the Isley Brothers' "It's Your Thing", a King single of June 1969 and her first chart hit.
Sources
- Marva Whitney, Wikipedia
- Marva Whitney interview, WeFunk Radio (2006-10-31)
- Marva Whitney: It's her thing, KCUR (2007-02-19)
- Marva Whitney, Jazz Rock Soul