Veronica "Randy" Crawford (born February 18, 1952) is an American retired jazz and R&B singer. She has been more successful in Europe than in the United States, where she has not entered the Billboard Hot 100 as a solo artist. In the late 2000s, she received her first two Grammy Award nominations.

Career

Crawford first performed at club gigs from Cincinnati to Saint-Tropez, but made her name in the mid-1970s in New York, where she sang with jazzmen George Benson and Cannonball Adderley.

She signed with Columbia Records and released her first single, "Knock On Wood" / "If You Say the Word" in 1972. Adderley invited her to sing on his album Big Man: The Legend Of John Henry (1975).

In 1978, Crawford sang vocals on "Hoping Love Will Last", the opening song on side two of Please Don't Touch!, which was the second solo album by the former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett.

She led R&B veterans The Crusaders on the transatlantic hit "Street Life" (1979). A specially re-recorded version was featured in the soundtrack for the films Sharky's Machine and Jackie Brown, and appeared in commercials in the early 2000s. She later recorded for Warner Bros. Records. Crawford was named the 'Most Outstanding Performer' at the 1980 Tokyo Music Festival.

Her follow-up solo efforts included "One Day I'll Fly Away" (1980) and "You Might Need Somebody" (1981), which became soul standards, and a cover of the Tony Joe White song, popularised by Brook Benton, "Rainy Night in Georgia". The album Secret Combination (1981) stayed on the UK Albums Chart for sixty weeks, after which her profile dipped, despite a return to the UK Top Ten with "Almaz" in 1986.

She has sung with Bootsy Collins, Johnny Bristol, Quincy Jones, Al Jarreau, Rick Springfield, Katri Helena, Michael Kamen, Zucchero, David Sanborn, Steve Hackett, the Spanish band Presuntos Implicados, the Norwegian jazz-rock band Lava and Joe Sample amongst others.

Randy Crawford was set to perform "The Farewell South Africa" tour in Cape Town and Pretoria in October 2018 but it was cancelled due to her suffering a stroke. This would have been Crawford's final performance prior to retiring.

Discography

  • Everything Must Change (1976)
  • Miss Randy Crawford (1977)
  • Raw Silk (1979)
  • Now We May Begin (1980)
  • Secret Combination (1981)
  • Windsong (1982)
  • Nightline (1983)
  • Abstract Emotions (1986)
  • Rich and Poor (1989)
  • Through the Eyes of Love (1992)
  • Don't Say It's Over (1993)
  • Naked and True (1995)
  • Every Kind of Mood — Randy, Randi, Randee (1997)
  • Permanent/Play Mode (2001)
  • Feeling Good (2006)
  • No Regrets (2008)

Collaboration

  • 1978: Please Don't Touch! by Steve Hackett – Lead vocals on "Hoping Love Will Last".
  • 2017: Time and the River by David Sanborn – Lead vocals on “Windmills of my Mind”.

Awards

Grammy Awards

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| align="center" | 2007

| "All Night Long" (with Joe Sample)

| Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance

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| align="center" | 2009

| No Regrets (with Joe Sample)

| Best Jazz Vocal Album

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Brit Awards

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| align="center" | 1982

| Randy Crawford

| Best British Female Solo Artist

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