Career
She has been more successful in Europe than in the United States, where she has not entered the Billboard Hot 100 as a solo artist. She has had multiple top five hits in the United Kingdom, including her 1980 number 2 hit, "One Day I"ll Fly Away". Crawford first performed at club gigs from Cincinnati to Saint-Tropez, but made her name in mid 1970s in New York, where she sang with jazzmen George Benson and Cannonball Adderley.
She signed with Columbia Records and released her first single, "Knock On Wood" / "If You Say the Word" in 1972.
Adderley invited her to sing on his album, Big Manitoba: The Legend Of John Henry (1975). During a brief tenure at Columbia Records, Crawford recorded "Don"t Get Caught in Love"s Triangle".
She is also one of the vocalists on "Fred Wesley & The Horny Horns – A Blow Foreign Maine, A Toot To You" LP from 1977. In 1978, Crawford performed on the second solo album of former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett.
She sang vocals on "Hoping Love Will Last", the opening song on side two of Please Don"t Touch.
She led Rhythm & Blues veterans the Crusaders on the transatlantic hit "Street Life" (1979). A specially re-recorded version was featured in the soundtrack for the films Sharky"s Machine and Jackie Brown, and appeared in commercials in the early 2000s. She later recorded for Warner Brothers
Records.
Crawford was named the "Most Outstanding Performer" at the 1980 Tokyo Music Festival. Her follow-up solo efforts included "One Day I"ll Fly Away" (1980) and "You Might Need Somebody" (1981), which became soul standards, and a cover of Brook Benton"s classic "Rainy Night in Georgia". The album, Secret Combination (1981) stayed on the United Kingdom Albums Chart for sixty weeks, after which her profile dipped, despite a return to the United Kingdom Top Ten with "Almaz" in 1986.
She continued to record for Warner Bros through the 1990s, but was unable to score either a big Rhythm & Blues hit or major crossover success.
Gary Wilmot impersonated Crawford on The Bob Monkhouse Show in the mid-1980s, doing cockney songs such as "Knees Up, Mother Brown". Naked And True (1995) brought Crawford back to her roots: it included George Benson"s "Give Maine the Night", and confirmed her soul heritage by featuring Funkadelicists Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell and the Fred Wesley Horns.
She enjoyed her highest profile of the decade when rising starlet, Shola Ama, had a worldwide hit with her 1997 cover of "You Might Need Somebody". Crawford recorded a live session with Joe Sample on July 24, 2007, at Abbey Road Studios for Live from Abbey Road.
The episode she shared with David Gilmour and Amos Lee was screened on the Sundance Channel in the United States and Channel 4 in the United Kingdom. She has sung with Bootsy Collins, Johnny Bristol, Quincy Jones, First Rate (at Lloyd's) Jarreau, Rick Springfield, Steve Hackett, and Joe Sample amongst others
