George McCrae

George Warren McCrae Jr. (McCray, born October 19, 1944) is an American soul and disco singer who is most famous for his 1974 hit "Rock Your Baby".

McCrae was the second of nine children, born in West Palm Beach, Florida. He formed his own singing group, the Jivin' Jets, before joining the United States Navy in 1963. He married Gwen McCrae (née Mosley) in 1963. Four years later, he re-formed the group, with his wife Gwen joining the lineup, but soon afterwards they decided to work as a duo, recording for Henry Stone's Alston record label. Gwen then won a solo contract, with George acting as her manager as well as doing some singing on sessions and in clubs in Palm Beach.

He was about to return to college to study law enforcement, when Richard Finch and Harry Wayne Casey of KC and the Sunshine Band invited him to sing the lyrics for a song that they had recorded for the band, but could not reach the high notes that were required for the song. The original intention was that Gwen, his wife, should record it, but she was late for the session and George recorded alone. It suited his high-pitched voice to the extent that the song, "Rock Your Baby", became one of the first hits of the disco era in 1974, selling an estimated eleven million copies worldwide, topping the charts in the U.S. and the UK. The song was so successful that Rolling Stone magazine voted it the No. 1 song of the year in 1974. McCrae received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Male R&B Vocalist the following year.

Two further single releases, "I Can't Leave You Alone", backed by "I Get Lifted", and "It's Been So Long", also reached the UK Singles Chart Top 10. He recorded several further albums for TK, including George McCrae (1975) and Diamond Touch (1976), and also continued to record with, and manage, his wife until their divorce in 1976. They had two daughters together, Sophia and Leah.

While he continued to record albums including We Did It! and his second self-titled album George McCrae (both 1978), his commercial popularity slipped as the decade progressed. He married a second time, moved to Canada, and entered a period of semi-retirement, leaving TK at the end of the 1970s. With his second wife, he had another daughter, Jennifer McCray.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.