1971
STICK - UP * HONEY CONE * HOT WAX 7106 *
Stick-Up is a dynamic and exciting song that is well in the proto feminist genre that was emerging in black music around the late 1960s early 1970s. Based on the stock phrases or jargon of the police, and criminal activities, the songs narrative tells of an errant lover who will be hunted down and brought to justice, but 'Stick-Up' also subtly refers to the act which will result, in the words of the song, of the heroine "walking down the isle with their child"! The songs sentiments are a reversal of the 'hard-done-by' male in the 'Shotgun Wedding' songs of a decade earlier, where the hapless lover is press-ganged into marriage by the barrel of a gun; the implication being that it is the father of the ill used young woman who is committing the criminal act. Honey Cone: Edna Wright, Carolyn Willis and Shellie Clarke, were formed in 1969 by the song writing trio Holland, Dozier and Holland, who also owned Hot Wax the label which the girls recorded for. Lead sing Edna Wright had previously recorded A Touch Of Venus under the pseudonym Sandy Wynns, for Vee Jay records; she was also a member of Ray Charles' backing group The Raelets for a brief period.