10 Best Black Female Singers of the 70s
The 1970s saw the emergence of several blackness female singers who topped the charts, took home awards, and created a style that would be emulated for years to come up.
Many of the best black female singers of the '70s got their start singing gospel songs in their local churches earlier branching out into R&B, soul, disco, rock, or pop music.
Aretha Franklin
- Grammy/Nominations: 18 wins amid 44 nominations
- American Music Awards: six
- Billboard No. 1 hits: 2
Aretha Franklin was born March 25, 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee, and raised in Detroit, Michigan. She moved to New York and signed with Columbia Records in the early 1960s.
The undisputed Queen of Soul'south powerful vocals combine gospel music with the jazz stylings of Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holliday. Aretha became the first female inductee of the Rock and Gyre Hall of Fame. Rolling Rock magazine named Franklin the Greatest Singer of the Rock Era.
Franklin burst onto the scene in the mid-1960s and continued to make hit records until the 1990s. Her career overlapped the struggle for Ceremonious Rights, the activism of the anti-war and feminist movements, and the political battles of Black Ability.
She was an accomplished pianist and eventually became her own arranger and producer – ane of the few black female person singers of the '70s who had that much control over her personal songs and sound.
Aretha is one of the nigh decorated musical artists of all time, with eighteen Grammy Awards. Her nearly well-known singles are "(Y'all Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" and "Respect."
Chaka Khan
- Grammy/Nominations: 10 wins in 22 nominations
- American Music Awards: 0
- Billboard No.1 hits: 0
Over a xl-year career, Chaka Khan released 22 albums, ten of which have been certified either aureate or platinum by the Recording Manufacture Clan of America.
Her female empowerment ballad "I'm Every Woman" reached No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 list in 1978. Six years subsequently, Chaka released her near significant striking record, "I Experience for You lot." It climbed to No. 3.
Khan is equally adept at singing soul, R&B, pop, gospel, country, classical, rock, and world music. She recorded a jazz album that included collaborations with Chick Correa, Lenny White, and Stanley Clarke.
She has likewise performed on both the Broadway phase (The Color Majestic) and on London'southward Due west End (Mama I Want to Sing). Her songs have been included on almost a dozen movie soundtracks, including "Continuing in the Shadows of Motown," and "Madea's Family unit Reunion."
Chaka Khan was inducted into the Hollywood Basin Hall of Fame, received the Soul Railroad train Legend Honour and the Black Amusement Goggle box (BET) Lifetime Accomplishment Honour.
The Berklee College of Music conferred an Honorary Doctorate of Music on Khan in 2004. In 2011, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Natalie Cole
- Grammy/Nominations: ix wins in 21 nominations
- American Music Awards: 4
- Billboard No.1 hits: 0
Natalie Cole was the girl of Nat Male monarch Cole, one of the most renowned singers of all time.
Her parents encouraged her to sing, and she recorded her first solo vocal, "I'm Expert Volition, Your Christmas Spirit" at the tender age of 6. Less than a decade later, her famous father died of cancer, and Natalie gave up singing for a while to nourish college in Massachusetts.
During a summer suspension, Natalie started singing again. This time she began in minor clubs and bars. Past 1975, she had a recording contract with Capitol Records. Her debut album "Inseparable" won Natalie the first 2 of her nine Grammy awards.
In the concluding half of the '70s, Natalie released four albums. All of them became gold records, and the RIAA certified two albums platinum.
Natalie'south career took a major hit in the early 1980s when she vicious victim to drug addiction. But she rebounded in 1983 with the single "Pinkish Cadillac," which Bruce Springsteen wrote for her. But her biggest success was notwithstanding to come.
That occurred when she released "Unforgettable … with Love," an album of songs defended to her father. The vocal "Unforgettable" was one of Nat Male monarch Cole'southward most famous, and Natalie recorded a tribute version equally a duet with her father. She used this original recording equally the hook.
The accompanying video inserted her nowadays-day singing into clips of her father singing.
Natalie Cole passed abroad on New year's day's Eve 2015, at age 65.
Tina Turner
- Grammy/Nominations: 8 wins in 25 nominations
- American Music Awards: 3
- Billboard No.i hits: 1
Tina Turner's original claim to fame was singing lead in the Ike and Tina Turner Revue in the 1950s with her first husband, Ike. The megahit "Proud Mary" came from that union. But she would earn tremendous acclaim as a solo singer throughout the '70s and '80s with a string of major hits.
Born Anna Mae Bullock in a small Tennessee town on November 26, 1939, Tina moved to St. Louis, Missouri as a young teenager. Tina's love of music led her to engage in local R&B clubs.
Tina's distinctive throaty phonation and theatrical on-stage energy speedily emerged as a highlight of gigs throughout the Midwest.
Afterward a messy and public divorce, where Tina claimed spousal abuse, she began to make her own music. Merely the aforementioned fame she had enjoyed with Ike was immediately elusive.
It took almost a decade, simply Tina Turner re-emerged with one of the all-time albums of the 1980s, "Private Dancer" and its No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 list: "What's Love Got to Practice With It."
Ii other songs, including the title runway, reached the top 10. "What'southward Love Got to Do With It" ended up challenge the Record of the Year Grammy laurels.
Gladys Knight
- Grammy/Nominations: 7 wins in 22 nominations
- American Music Awards: 7
- Billboard No.1 hits: 2
It seems that Gladys Knight was built-in to sing. Her kickoff solo was in an Atlanta church choir when she was only 4. At age eight, Gladys formed the "Pips" with ii siblings and ii cousins. The family unit of singers could harmonize and trip the light fantastic toe well. Presently they were performing throughout the Due south.
Motown Records signed Gladys Knight and the Pips to a contract in the mid-1960s, and they had a string of hits. Nearly notably, "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" climbed both the R&B and pop charts in 1967.
The group released its virtually successful album in 1973, entitled "Imagination." The album produced three striking singles, including the Grammy-laurels winner "Midnight Train to Georgia." The song reached No. ane on the Billboard Hot 100 list.
Gladys Knight and the Pips hosted a serial of television specials in the mid-1970s, and Gladys played opposite Flip Wilson in a sitcom called "Charlie and Co." that lasted only a few episodes.
Over the years, legal and fiscal issues besieged the group. At one bespeak, they sued Motown for lost earnings and unpaid royalties. Legal bug with a future visitor forced the Pips to record separately from Gladys Knight, although they could sing together on phase.
Reunited in the recording studio in the late 1980s, the Pips released the Grammy-winning song "Dear Overboard." One year afterwards, Gladys Knight recorded the title track for "License to Impale," a James Bond movie.
Dionne Warwick
- Grammy/Nominations: 5 wins in 14 nominations
- American Music Awards: 0
- Billboard No.1 hits: two
Another singer who got her beginning in the church building, Dionne Warwick formed a gospel trio in her teens with her sister (Dee Dee) and aunt (Cissy Houston, Whitney Houston's mother). Dionne studied music at Hartt College in Connecticut.
While there, she landed some groundwork vocal gigs in New York Metropolis, where she met legendary author and producer Burt Bacharach. She presently signed a recording contract.
On her first single, "Don't Make Me Over" in 1962, the record company misspelled her proper noun Warwick for Warrick, and she decided to keep it that way.
Two years later, she had two top-10 songs on the R&B charts, including the No. ane hit "Walk on By." She continued to release hits, including the theme song to the movies "Alfie" and "Valley of the Dolls."
Warwick's commencement Grammy came for her trademark vocal "Practice You Know the Style to San Jose" in 1968.
Her career dipped slightly in the '70s, although she rebounded with the striking "I'll Never Love This Fashion Again" in 1979.
She later on released "That's What Friends Are For," an enormous hit single that reached No. i and won a Grammy accolade. It was a collaboration with Stevie Wonder, Elton John, and Gladys Knight.
Dionne Warwick also hosted the television set music plan "Solid Gold" for several years in the early 1980s.
Donna Summer
- Grammy/Nominations: 5 wins in 18 nominations
- American Music Awards: 6
- Billboard No.1 hits: iv
The undisputed Queen of the Disco era, Donna Summer, released the second-nearly No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 list of any Blackness female singer of the 70s. She was born on New Twelvemonth's Eve 1948 in Boston. Her debut performance occurred at age 10 in church.
By high schoolhouse, Donna was performing in stage musicals locally. Then, she won a role in a European tour of "Hair" right earlier her graduation. After the run ended, she remained in Frg, starred in other musicals, sang fill-in, and recorded demos. Her beginning hit was "The Hostage" in Europe.
Donna Summer's start disco solo, "Love to Love You Baby" in 1975, was a rule billow. It ran for 17 minutes and featured both soft vocals and moaning. Radio stations at first refused to play information technology, but it still became a hit.
In 1977, her song "Concluding Dance" was featured in the pic "Thank God It's Friday" and won the 1978 Academy Award for All-time Vocal.
1978 was a imprint year for Summertime. She had three No. 1 Billboard hits that year – the first female artist to achieve that honor. 'MacArthur Park" reached the acme offset, followed by "Bad Girls" and "Hot Stuff."
Five years after, Summertime scored another massive striking with "She Works Hard for the Coin."
Donna Summer died in 2012 at age 63 subsequently a long battle with cancer.
Roberta Flack
- Grammy/Nominations: four wins in 14 nominations
- American Music Awards: ane
- Billboard No.1 hits: 3
Roberta Flack came past singing through the piano. She was classically trained in the musical instrument and received a scholarship to attend Howard University. However, she also had a strong, soulful voice, then she switched majors.
Roberta became the assistant conductor of Howard Academy's choir and was soon singing in nightclubs throughout the Washington, D.C. area.
Early in her career, Roberta taught music at iii junior loftier schools in the D.C. surface area, and private piano lessons from her home. A local eating house owner turned his upper room into a performance space for Roberta, where she sang blues, folk, and pop standards iii nights per week.
Roberta was the first solo singer to win back-to-back Grammy awards for Tape of the Yr. "The Kickoff Time E'er I Saw Your Face" won in 1973, and "Killing Me Softly with His Song" claimed the 1974 trophy. (Only Billie Eilish has done so since.)
Both songs also reached No. 1 on the Hot 100 list, every bit did "Feel Similar Makin' Love" in 1974. Other hits include "This evening, I Celebrate My Love" and "The Closer I Go to Yous." She received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement award in 2020.
Now retired from touring, Roberta Flack began a foundation supporting music education and beast welfare in 2010.
Gloria Gaynor
- Grammy/Nominations: two wins in 7 nominations
- American Music Awards: 0
- Billboard No.one hits: 1
Gloria Gaynor has survived. Her legendary music career has spanned more than than four decades. In improver to numerous awards and accolades, her most famous song "I Will Survive" was included in the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry.
This song is oftentimes played at events celebrating cancer recovery and was an anthem of hope during the days subsequently the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York Urban center and Washington. D.C.
Gloria was born in Newark, New Jersey, on September 7, 1943. Although born into a family of male person singers and performers, Gloria was non given the chance to bring together them on stage.
After loftier school, she took matters into her own hands and began singing in pocket-sized clubs throughout the East Coast. Gaynor signed her get-go recording contract in 1971.
She had moderate nautical chart success throughout the '70s before recording "I Will Survive" in 1978. Originally released as the B-side to the vocal "Substitute," a Boston disc jockey discovered "I Will Survive" i night and played it numerous times.
Soon other stations were doing the same thing, and Polydor Records took annotation. They re-released information technology as an A-side single, and it went to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 list.
"I Will Survive" took home the Grammy for Best Disco Recording in 1980, the just year that award was presented. She received her second Grammy 40 years later in 2022 for Best Roots Gospel Album.
Diana Ross
- Grammy/Nominations: 0 wins in 12 nominations
- American Music Awards: 8
- Billboard No.1 hits: half dozen
Diana Ross has the most No. 1 hits past the blackness female singers of the '70s. She shot to fame in the 1960s every bit the lead vocalizer of the Supremes, a classic Motown group. Then she went solo and churned out hit after hit, including "Ain't No Mountain Loftier Plenty," "Bear on Me in the Morning," and "Theme from Mahogany."
Her duet "Endless Love" with Lionel Richie is the all-time acknowledged duet in history and topped the Billboard Hot 100 listing for more two months in 1980.
Diana was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and then information technology was no surprise when she was signed to Detroit-based Motown Records with friends Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard.
The Supremes racked upwardly a dozen chart-topping hits in the 1960s, including "You Can't Hurry Honey," "Baby Beloved" and "Finish! In the Name of Dear."
She left the Supremes in 1969 to venture out as a solo artist and met with immediate success. Diana also starred in three movies, "The Wiz," "Mahogany," and "Lady Sings the Blues.," during the '70s.
Ross received an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of legendary singer Billie Holiday.
Despite the absenteeism of a performance Grammy, Diana Ross has won a Golden Globe laurels, a Tony award, and eight American Music Awards.
She was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement award in 2012 and inducted, with the Supremes, into the Rock and Whorl Hall of Fame. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Top Blackness Female person Singers of the 70s, Final Thoughts
This listing of the best black female singers of the '70s includes women who rose to the summit of the charts in soul, R&B, disco, and rock music. Forth the way, they won numerous awards and led the fashion for a generation of black female singers.
Some had No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 list. Others branched out into movies, television, or the Broadway phase.
Still, they all show that talent and an unrelenting desire to be the best vocalizer possible could be achievable during a pivotal time in U.Due south. history.
Source: https://www.thatsister.com/black-female-singers-70s/
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