BETTY WRIGHT - Tonight Is The Night

In 1974 twenty-one singer and songwriter Betty Wright released her Danger: High Voltage album, featuring the original version of her soul ballad Tonight's The Night. In 1978 she released a re-worked live version of the song, and it has become one of her signature songs. Wright started her music career, and recorded her first album, at the age of two with her siblings gospel group the Echoes Of Joy. When Wright was eleven the group broke up, and the following year she signed to a label as a solo artist for the first time. At fourteen she released her first album - My First Time Around. As a teenager she released numerous hit singles, and when she was seventeen she recorded Clean Up Woman, which would be her first gold record. In 1985 Wright formed her own label, and soon became the first (of only a few) black women to score a gold album on their own label. Tonight's The Night (particularly the live version) has been sampled numerous times, including by Color me Bad on their 1991 hit single I Wanna Sex You Up - without permission. That sparked a lawsuit that won her 35% of the song's royalties.