Marie "Queenie" Lyons – Soul Fever

A real soul gem from 1970 on the James Brown-affiliated Deluxe label, the first and only album by this mysterious singer:

Marie Queenie Lyons. It is perhaps quite fitting that Queenie Marie Lyons' best-known song is entitled "See And Don't See" Despite the huge reputation this song has achieved, and despite the many compilations, reissues and, yes, bootlegs - despite the many times it has been seen - Queenie herself has somehow remained invisible.

Queenie was a natural and a gifted singer. By the age of fifteen, she was performing three gigs a week at a local bar. In early 1962, Queenie moved to Queens and was soon performing all over the city - an early engagement was with Gene Krupa at the famous Metropole Café in Times Square - as well as touring with well-known artists such as Fats Domino and Ray Charles. The following year, Queenie recorded her debut, for an RCA subsidiary called Groove, owned by an entirely fictitious Shelley Shoop and the Shakers It remained Queenie's only appearance on wax until early 1968, when a Nashville-based label called Sims gave her her first accurately credited single, "A Minute Of His Goodtime / Good Soul Lovin'," Although the 45-rpm single is now a coveted collector's item in the pantheon of Northern Soul and lowrider oldies, it made no impact at the time, as Sims focused on more typical Nashville sounds. A few months later, Queenie was back in New York City, performing R&B and pop covers with her band, when a man handed her his business card at a gig. The card read "James Brown Enterprises". James Brown "was my idol," she says, and someone whose business acumen and stage presence she wanted to emulate. Although Queenie only toured with James Brown for about a month, when the group reached Cincinnati in mid-1968, she entered the King Records studio there to record the album you're holding in your hands right now. The songs were a combination of covers, some of which they had already performed in their live shows, such as 'Fever' and 'Try Me', and original compositions written by producer Henry Glover and pianist Don Pullen, who led the band on the recording. The album's opener, 'See And Don't See', was also recorded by veteran R&B singer Maxine Brown, but Queenie's version surpasses her own. 'Soul Fever' is a supremely funky and soulful affair, with Queenie's powerful and captivating voice magnetically appealing and an urgency that is impossible to resist.