Jean Knight, the American soul singer, who has died aged 80, may have been what the music industry calls a “one-hit wonder”, but what a hit it was. In 1971, four years after Aretha Franklin had turned Otis Redding’s song Respect into a demand for female emancipation, Knight took a song called Mr Big Stuff and used it to demolish male arrogance and sexual entitlement.
When Knight performed the song on the popular US television show Soul Train, in a maroon velvet trouser suit and a giant bouffant wig, she did so with a proud, derisive smile. She also had the assistance of an irresistibly funky rhythm track, spiced by interjections from a perky trumpet-led horn section. The record flew to No 1 on the R&B chart in the US, and then to No 2 on the pop charts, selling two million copies, and was denied the top spot only by the Bee Gees’ How Can You Mend a Broken Heart.
