Soul and Disco Vocalist Gwen McCrae Dies at Age 81

Gwen McCrae’s discography includes hits like “Rockin’ Chair,” “Always On My Mind,” and “Funky Sensation.”

Prolific soul and disco singer Gwen McCrae has died at age 81, according to reports. No cause of death has been disclosed at the time of writing.

Soul music media outlet SoulTracks broke the news on Friday, February 21. “We are devastated to pass on more bad news,” the brand wrote in an accompanying post on X. “Soul and Disco star Gwen McCrae has died. We are still jamming to ‘Rockin’ Chair’ all these years later. Rest in peace Gwen.”

While the aforementioned 1975 single was arguably McCrae’s most commercially successful release, her discography includes numerous other hits. Born Gwen Mosley in Pensacola, Florida, she sang in church choirs before marrying her husband, George McCray, and performing alongside him starting in 1963. By 1970, she had achieved modest success on the back of “Lead Me On,” which came out on CBS. Then came “Always On My Mind” in 1972, which would later get covered by a range of artists eclectic enough to include Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson, and the Pet Shop Boys.

Not long after the release of “Rockin’ Chair,” McCrae’s first to break the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100, she and her husband started to grow apart. What came next for her was a flurry of successful singles, not the least of which were “Me Is You” and “All This Love That I’m Givin’.”

Even after disco fell out of vogue in the US, Gwen McCrae’s career maintained momentum in the UK’s northern soul community. Participants in the scene notably laid the foundation for the acid house movement that vaulted electronic music to youth culture phenomenon status by the end of the ’80s. McCrae performed through 2012, when she suffered a stroke that affected her mobility and singing.

We here at EDM Identity express our sincere condolences to the family and friends of Gwen McCrae during what can only be a difficult time.