AMERICAN R&B singer Betty Wright is expected in Jamaica November 6 for a night dubbed Betty Wright In Concert, at the LIME Golf Academy in New Kingston.

The singer has an impressive catalogue of hits which includes numbers such as No Pain No Gain, Tonight Is The Night, Goodbye You Hello Him, Thank You For The Many Things You’ve Done, Clean Up Woman, Girls Can’t Do What The Guys Do and Rock On Baby Rock On.

Wright has influenced a generation of female singer-songwriters and also influenced the world of hip hop, who sampled some of her more famous material.

Born singing gospel with the family group, the Echoes of Joy, Wright began switching to R&B music in 1965 when she was only 11. In 1968, she released her first album, My First Time Around, at the age of 15, and scored her first hit, Girls Can’t Do What Guys Can Do. But it was not until the end of 1971 that Wright’s most successful phase of her career took place. The song, Clean Up Woman, became a Top 5 pop and R&B hit, and would later influence a remix of Mary J Blige’s Real Love single with the sample of its guitar riffs.

In 1974, Wright scored big with the songs Tonight is the Night (about a real-life love affair that happened with Wright when she was a teenager) and Where is the Love (which won her a Grammy for Best R&B Song).

In the early 1980s, she founded her own record label, Ms B Records, and in 1988 made music history by being the first woman to have a gold record on her own label, with the release of Mother Wit, which featured two of her biggest hits in years, No Pain No Gain and the After The Pain. On both songs, Wright displays her powerful upper register capabilities and seven-octave range.

By 2001, a compilation album The Very Best of Betty Wright was released, along with her first studio album for several years, Fit for a King. Still recording music to this day, she now mentors several young singers, and has done vocal production for the likes of Gloria Estefan, Jennifer Lopez and Joss Stone.

Sharing the stage with Wright will be local talents Tarrus Riley and Band and Tessane Chin.

Negotiations are in the works for another big-name local act to be in the lineup.