Vicki Anderson

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Vicki Anderson, born Myra Barnes in 1939 in Houston, Texas, was an American soul singer, best known for her performances with the James Brown Revue. She recorded a number of singles under both her birth name and her stage name. In 1965 she joined Brown, replacing Anna King. For three years she was his leading female singer, until Marva Whitney replaced her in 1968. When Whitney left, she returned in 1969 and stayed for three more years, until Lyn Collins took her place in 1972. Brown wrote in his autobiography that Anderson was the best singer he ever had in his revue.

In 1970 she released the funk song The Message from the Soul Sisters. In 1975 a single followed on Brown's label I-Dentify under the name Momie-O, with a cover of Rufus's Once You Get Started and Bobby Womack's Stop On By. In the late 1980s she toured Britain with the James Brown Funky People Revue, and in the mid-1990s with her husband Bobby Byrd, the founder of The Famous Flames, whom she had married in the mid-1960s. Their daughter Carleen Anderson became a singer herself and has released albums in Britain since the 1990s. Vicki Anderson died in 2023 at the age of 83. She shows how large the role of female singers was in the revue of the man who invented funk.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 1992Message From a Soul Sister

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

• After Hours: Session 4^NL Reader