Jean Knight

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Soul singer Jean Knight’s only big hit was a monster — the sassy funk classic “Mr. Big Stuff,” one of the largest-selling singles ever released by the legendary Stax label. A native of New Orleans, Knight was born in 1943 and made her first recordings for producer Huey P. Meaux’s Jet Stream and Tribe labels during the mid- to late ’60s (many of her sides were later collected on West Side’s Blue Soul Belles, Vol. 2). Her success largely confined to the immediate area, Knight was working as a baker when she went to Malaco Studios in Jackson, MS, for a session with veteran producer Wardell Quezerque in 1970. The key track, a spirited putdown of male arrogance called “Mr. Big Stuff,” was shopped to Stax Records, who passed on it at first. However, after King Floyd’s “Groove Me” (another Malaco recording) went gold, Stax reconsidered and released “Mr. Big Stuff” in 1971. It was an enormous hit, spending five weeks at number one on the R&B charts and falling one slot short of the same position on the pop side. Despite a strong accompanying album of the same name and some similarly gritty follow-up singles (which included “You Think You’re Hot Stuff” and “Carry On”), Knight couldn’t manage to duplicate the success of “Mr. Big Stuff,” and quickly faded from the soul scene.

In 1981, Knight scored a minor hit with a version of “You Got the Papers (But I Got the Man),” and charted with one of the more successful covers of the Rockin’ Sidney zydeco smash “My Toot Toot” in 1985; “My Toot Toot” also served as the title track for a full-length LP on Mirage. Knight returned once again in the late ’90s, cutting an album for Ichiban in 1997 called Shaki De Boo-Tee. She followed it two years later with the Formaldehyde release Queen.

Tagged as:

soul, funk, rhythm and blues, stax, rnb
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Top Tracks

1	Mr. Big Stuff full track	507
2	Do Me	96
3	Mr Big Stuff	65
4	Carry On	21
5	You Think You're Hot Stuff	14
6	Take Him (You Can Have My Man)	10
7	Helping Man	9
8	A Little Bit Of Something (Is Better Than All Of Nothing)	8
9	My Toot Toot	3
9	Why I Keep Living These Memories	3
11	Save The Last Kiss For Me	2
11	Don't Talk About Jody	2
11	Call Me Your Fool If You Want To	2
11	One-Way Ticket To Nowhere (It's The End Of The Ride)	2
11	"Do Me"	2

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Hayzi22 wrote:
last month

Jean Knight is my favorite.

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ejbarto wrote:
June 2009

aaaah yeaaah just who do you think you are! [2]

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1SaM wrote:
April 2007

aaaah yeaaah just who do you think you are!

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