As one of the many individually talented female singers of the 60s, Sandy Posey stood out from the crowd by being one of the best interpreters of countrified pop shot through with a splash of Memphis soul. Back then, you couldn’t go to a birthday party, Saturday night dance or school disco without hearing A Single Girl, a moody lament that says so much about teenage anguish and unrequited lust.
Born in Jasper, Alabama, in 1944, Posey was the youngest of five children raised on gospel music and deep south hospitality. She began performing in public at an early age and after graduating from high school she found work as a receptionist with several recording studios ending up at Chips Moman’s American Sound Studio in Memphis.
During this time, Posey worked as a session singer, attending sessions for Sam Phillips at Sun Records, while also working with the Hurshel Wiginton Singers who were in constant demand, adding their backing vocals to hundreds of recordings. Posey also recorded solo under various pseudonyms, though these made little impression either locally or nationally.
Just as it seemed that her musical ambitions would come to nothing, she was invited by a song plugger named Gary Walker to cut a demo at Muscle Shoals called Born A Woman, written by the equally unknown Martha Marion Sharp.
Moman was so taken by the demo that he re-recorded the song at his own studio and leased it through MGM who instantly signed up Posey. Though the song blatantly subjugates women (fuel to the fire for feminists), it went on to sell over a million copies, and Posey’s reading suggests how the ‘victim’ was able to manipulate a situation to her advantage.
It was the pensive follow-up, Single Girl – also penned by Sharp – that gave Posey her greatest international hit; a song that encapsulates the sound of mid-60s America in much the same way as Daydream by The Lovin’ Spoonful or Spooky by the Classics IV.
Her third single, What A Woman In Love Won’t Do, by musical polymath John D Loudermilk, gave Posey a minor hit on both sides of the Atlantic, though she admitted she never much liked the song, perhaps because of the subservient role of the song’s protagonist.
Written by Bobby Buie and JR Cobb, I Take It Back was her final hit; a song displaying more country leanings than previous singles, it also highlighted her liking for The Shirelles and The Shangri-Las. Posey was no slouch herself in the songwriting stakes: Blue Is My Best Color, You Got To Have Love To Be Happy, I Can Show You How To Live and All Hung Up In Your Green Eyes offer another perspective among her many talents.
Posey frequently described her brand of music as “pop-country” and acknowledged her love of The Beach Boys’ close harmonies and the sounds emanating from England via The Beatles and the British Invasion. Her musical tastes were remarkably diverse, ranging from traditional rhythm and blues to contemporary writers such as P. F. Sloan and Joe South.
Aiming to furnish Posey with another hit, Sharp wrote the reflective Ways Of The World. It was a truly creative collaboration that underscored their individual credentials and should have consolidated their musical partnership, yet for some inexplicable reason it failed. A few months earlier Sharp had penned Come Back When You Grow Up for Bobby Vee; a contentious song that turned out to be the last major hit for both Vee and Sharp, though Sharp would later secure a more dependable income when appointed Vice President of Warner Records.
Unfortunately for Posey, by the end of ’68 her career was beginning to fade. Over two short years she had released nine singles and four studio albums. Shy and retiring by nature, she never much cared for touring, and doing the publicity rounds and conducting interviews was never her forte.
To be fair to Posey, the rise of Tamla Motown, Stax and Atlantic Records, coupled with the folk-rock movement promoted by Elektra/Asylum, did much to sideline the fortunes of many female country singers.
The careers of Bobbie Gentry, Nancy Sinatra and Jeannie C Riley all suffered a similar
fate, though Posey appeared to take it all in her stride.
She continued to do session work, and was as in-demand as ever, providing backing vocals for everyone from Tommy Roe to Joe Tex and Bobby Goldsboro. She also backed Percy Sledge on his southern soul classic, When A Man Loves A Woman, and worked with Elvis on Kentucky Rain, The Wonder Of You, Suspicious Minds and In The Ghetto, as well as many of his gospel recordings.
Having always admired Hank Williams, Posey decided to pursue her interest in country music and relocated to Nashville in the 70s where she found regular session work with producer Billy Sherrill, now best remembered for co-writing Stand By Your Man with Tammy Wynette. Under Sherrill’s guidance Posey supported many Nashville legends including Waylon Jennings, Charlie Rich and George Jones, and also enjoyed a Top 20 country chart hit of her own with Bring Him Home Safely To Me.
Nowadays, she continues to work as a backing singer for her husband Wade Cummins, better known as Elvis Wade, often touted as the best Elvis impersonator in the world. This is hard to deny bearing in mind that the King himself endorsed his act by inviting Wade to join him in concert at Las Vegas in 1969, an honour Presley never extended to any other impersonator. It has been further compounded by the willingness of The Jordanaires (a harmony group who worked with Presley) to add their vocal support to Wade’s live shows over the years.
Wade and Posey married in 1993 and have been performing together ever since, and as born-again Christians they are not averse to promoting their evangelical beliefs onstage. For Posey, the journey from Memphis belle to Countrypolitan pioneer to sacred crusader has proven to be a long and winding road to salvation.
Words: Lin Bensley
Sandy Posey Born A Woman – The Complete MGM Recordings 1966-1968 is on Strawberry Records.
