Judy Clay born 12 September 1938

Judy Clay (September 12, 1938 – July 19, 2001) was an American soul and gospel singer, who achieved greatest success as a member of two recording duos in the 1960s.

Judy was born Judith Grace Guions in St Paul, North Carolina, and soon moved to Fayetteville, where she was raised by her grandmother. She started singing in church as a small child. Moving to Brookyn in the early 1950s, she continued her church singing, indeed her choir featured on Sunday night radio.

By her early teens, she had been adopted by Lee Drinkard, of the famous gospel group, the Drinkard Singers. Lee was Cissy Houston's sister and Dionne Warwick's mother - and Judy was soon involved in the group with them, as well as with Dionne's sister Delia, Dee Dee Warwick.

The Drinkard Singers  (who later became better known as The Sweet Inspirations)- released three albums in the 1950s which featured Judy - the Newport Spiritual Stars record in 1954, a live album from the Newport jazz festival and a 1958 studio LP. Judy's voice could raise the roof and stir the soul.

She left the Drinkard Singers in 1960 and made her first solo recording, "More Than You Know", on Ember Records. "Do You Think That's Right" appeared the following year, and while both captured soul music at its most visceral and poignant, neither record caught on at radio or retail, a pattern Clay proved unable to shake for the majority of her career. In 1963, she signed to the Lavette label, teaming with Little Lee for the duet "Everyday Since You've Been Gone," the first of many such collaborations spread across her discography.

This was followed by further singles on Scepter and Stax but with little commercial success, although "You Busted My Mind" later became successful on the UK's Northern soul nightclub circuit.

                                

In 1967, Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records teamed her up with white singer-songwriter Billy Vera to make the United States' first racially integrated duo, and The Sweet Inspirations, to record "Storybook Children”. The record made #20 on the US R&B chart and #54 pop. It was seen as the first interracial duo recording for a major label.

However, Vera has stated that television executives denied them appearances together, believing (wrongly) that Vera and Clay were more than just singing partners, and, to add insult to injury, had the song performed on network TV by Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood. Judy was pregnant, at the time, with her first child by her husband, jazz drummer Leo Gatewood.

After another hit duet with Vera, "Country Girl, City Man", which reached #41 R&B and #36 pop, and an album together, she returned to Stax Records. There she had further successes, this time with William Bell. Their recording of "Private Number" reached #17 in the R&B chart and #75 on the U.S. pop chart, and had greater 

success in the UK where it reached #8 on the UK Singles Chart.

A follow-up, "My Baby Specializes", also made the R&B chart, before she returned to Atlantic for one more record with Vera, "Reaching For The Moon" and a final solo hit "Greatest Love" (# 45 R&B in 1970).

Subsequently, she worked as a backing vocalist with Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Van Morrison, Donny Hathaway and Wilson Pickett. Whenever the Sweet Inspirations needed a temporary replacement Judy was on hand and she also toured South Africa and Liberia with Ray Charles and his Orchestra. She made a fleeting return to the record world in 1979 with "Stayin' Alive", cut live for the small Newark, New Jersey-based LA-DCP label. Ill health then set in.

Judy Clay, Dionne Warwick & Mabel John

Stricken with a brain tumour she returned to gospel music. Shorty after her recovery she vowed never to sing secular music again and sang occasionally with Cissy Houston's gospel choir in Newark, New Jersey. Clay became a licensed evangelist in 1990.

Judy relocated to her hometown of Fayetteville, North Carolina, where she spent the rest of her days as Mrs. Judith Gatewood, witnessing her two sons graduate from college and exercising her deep and commanding singing voice only in the choir of her local church.

She died July 19, 2001 in Fayetteville, NC following complications from an auto accident. She was 62 years old. She was survived by two sons, Todd and Leo Gatewood, a brother, Raymond Guions, and her sister, Mrs. Sylvia Shemwell. (Edited from Wikipedia, Guardian, Spectropop & All Music)