Marva Whitney, Singer in the James Brown Revue, Dies at 68
By JON CARAMANICA
Published: December 31, 2012
James Brown was Soul Brother No. 1 and, for a while, Marva Whitney was Soul Sister No. 1.
via Gilles Petard/Redferns
Marva Whitney sang duets with James Brown in the ’60s, but also performed solo.
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That was the nickname Mr. Brown gave her when she was a singer in the James Brown Revue and a solo artist on his King Records, turning out brassy, rowdy empowerment anthems that would come to be prized by funk savants, sample-chasing hip-hop producers and record collectors.
As part of the James Brown Revue, Ms. Whitney, who died on Dec. 22 at 68, had her own featured segment during its shows and sang duets with Mr. Brown, her vocals effortlessly intense. After joining the revue in 1967, she was with Mr. Brown in some of his most momentous shows during a tumultuous 1968, including performances in Vietnam for American soldiers and in Boston on the night after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
While making her name alongside Mr. Brown, Ms. Whitney was becoming a lesser star on her own, shaped by Mr. Brown’s heavy production hand. Her breakthrough solo single was the urgent shout “Unwind Yourself,” which gained new life as the sample behind the seminal hip-hop breakbeat record “The 900 Number” by DJ Mark the 45 King.
Ms. Whitney’s biggest solo hit was a response to the Isley Brothers’ “It’s Your Thing.” Her recording, “It’s My Thing (You Can’t Tell Me Who to Sock It to),” released in 1969, became the title track of her lone studio album. (It was also later sampled by Public Enemy, N.W.A. and EPMD, among other artists.)
Mr. Brown had an on-the-fly but exacting recording style, and the tensions that resulted made recording the album “hell,” Ms. Whitney told the Village Voice in 2010. He also pushed her into recording more flamboyant material than she was inclined to choose on her own, and he shelved an album of jazz standards she recorded, titled “I Sing Soul.” It remains unreleased.
Ms. Whitney was popular enough to land on the cover of Jet magazine, but her fame waned after she left Mr. Brown’s camp in late 1969 despite a string of singles on the T-Neck and Forte labels. In the 1980s she performed as part of the J.B. All Stars, a group of former members of Mr. Brown’s bands. At various times they included Bobby Byrd, Maceo Parker, Fred Wesley and Lyn Collins.
The classic funk and soul revival of the last decade also gave Ms. Whitney new life. She released an album in 2006, “I Am What I Am,” with the Japanese funk outfit Osaka Monaurail, and played about 75 shows in the last five years. In 2009, she had a stroke onstage in Australia.
Marva Ann Manning was born into a musical family on May 1, 1944, in Kansas City, Kan. She began singing professionally as part of the Manning Gospel Singers. She also sang with the gospel group the Alma Whitney Singers and a local R&B group, Tommy & the Derby’s. In 1967, after an audition with Mr. Brown’s bandleader Pee Wee Ellis, Ms. Whitney was hired. She had turned down tours with Bobby Bland, Joe Tex and Little Richard.
In recent years she collaborated with Charles Waring on an autobiography, “God, the Devil & James Brown: Memoirs of a Funky Diva,” which is to be published this year.
Ms. Whitney died of complications of pneumonia in her hometown, said DJ Pari, who was her manager from 2004 through her retirement last year. She is survived by her mother, Willa Mae Manning; five brothers, Ray Jr., Raymond, Melvin, Marvin and Winfred; two children, Sherry Whitney and Ellis Taylor Jr.; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
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