1965
CRY ME A RIVER * MARIE KNIGHT * CBS * H
Marie Knight was born in Brooklyn in 1925, the same year as year as civil rights leader Malcolm X, and when seventeen black Americans are known to have been lynched. She sang gospel with the Millionaires, and enjoyed considerable popular success duetting with Sister Rosetta Tharp, yet when the duo recorded an album of the Blues, the church - who builds its power base and mythology on moral precedents like forgiveness and reconciliation - never forgave Marie Knight for this secular recording; curiously they didn't treat the much more famous Sister Rosetta Tharp in the same way.
On this Dutch release of Cry Me A River, written by Arthur Hamilton in 1953, and also performed by Julie London in the 1956 film The Girl Can't Help It, Marie Knight gives it her emotional best at full blast, backed by a sweet chorus of girls.
Marie Knight perused a career singing Soul for some time but failed to gain enough recognition to keep recording and, reputedly, ended up working as a telephone operator in her native Brooklyn.