Clydie King: The Imperial & Minit Years (1964-1968)

Texan born singer Clydie King is better known as a backing singer, having worked for many of the great names, including Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles, Joe Cocker, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Crosby, Stills & Nash and many others. She was one of the most in demand backing vocalists during her decades of singing; yet she only released three albums of her own between 1971 and 1976. Her career began when she was still a teenage, fronting the band Little Clydie and the Teens. She then recorded a series of singles for various labels, including RPM, Minit, Imperial, Specialty, Phillips and Lizard. In 1966 she became one of the original Raelettes backing Ray Charles and later dueting with him on his album Love Country Style, released in 1970. King sang on The Supremes song Nathan Jones as well as the Dylan project Dylan's Gospel. Around the same time her band the Blackberries signed to Motown where they recorded an album which was never released - King was too busy recording for other labels to find time to promote the release. Her next band was called Brown Sugar and in 1973 King had her first and only chart hit with ‘Loneliness (Will Bring Us Together Again)’. This 22-track compilation features all of her singles released through Imperial and Minit Records between 1964 and 1968 in chronological order. Given the close relation of those labels there's a relatively unified feel, kind of a California approach, that mixes in a bit of deep soul roots to a fuller, more New York style of soul. Clydie has also a nice, somewhat shy voice and understated, subtle delivery that comes as a refreshing contrast to the usual soul belters who try so hard to sing their hearts out. Production on some tracks is by Jimmy Holiday and Jerry Riopelle and arrangements are by Rene Hall, Nick DeCaro, and others. It is really great throughout, with a quite surprising strength, given the spare circulation of these singles at the time. The set features the two duets she recorded with the equally underrated Jimmy Holiday; ‘Ready, Willing and Able’ is an up-tempo funky number reminiscent of the girl group sounds of the time. In addition there are 8 previously-unreleased bonus tracks which show her trying some pretty unexpected tunes by the likes of Mickey Newbury, Bobbie Gentry, and Phil Ochs, as well as some rootsier stuff like the bluesy ‘I'm Glad I'm a Woman.’ Other tracks include 'My Love Grows Deeper', 'He Always Comes Back To Me', 'Soft And Gentle Ways', and 'Shing-A-Ling'. http://www.answers.com/, http://www.dustygroove.com/, http://www.bol.com/
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I am afraid this video has very poor quality, but it seems to be the only way to see a performance of Clydie in the '60s:
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