Pat Lewis obit

Motown great Pat Lewis dies at 76

 

She was not on the list.

(September 2, 2024) She wasn’t a household name, but she made quite an impact on the music world over several decades. Today we mourn the passing of Pat Lewis at age 76.

Like many Pennsylvanians, Lewis and her family moved to Detroit when she was a child in the early 50s. And it was there she made a name for herself as a singer. In the early 60s, Lewis helped form the vocal quartet The Adorables, and briefly recorded for Golden World Records. But she soon went solo, issuing the modest hit single “Can’t Shake It Loose” in 1966.

But, though Lewis continued to sing as a solo act, she became a legend supporting other artists as a background singer. That auspicious career began at the Motown label, where Lewis backed Stevie Wonder and other artists on several tracks over the latter 60s.

Lewis’s work on Motown opened up other opportunities, and in the 1970s, she became a member of Isaac Hayes’ backing ensemble. She also performed with the Queen of Soul herself, Aretha Franklin, supporting Franklin on two of her most lauded albums, Amazing Grace and Young, Gifted and Black.

In the late 1980s, Lewis joined other former Motown artists on UK producer Ian Levine’s Motorcity Records label, singing new songs with classic soul arrangements. She continued working with Levine and recording numerous singles through the 90s.

In the new millennium, Lewis has recorded and performed occasionally, mostly in multi-act classic soul tribute shows.

Pat Lewis was another in the seemingly endless string of talented vocalists and musicians who made Detroit the music capital of the world for more than a decade. And she will be missed.

Patsy Lewis was born on October 23, 1947, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, United States, and moved to Detroit, Michigan, in 1951. In the early 1960s, Pat, her sister Dianne, and two friends (Betty and Jackie Winston) formed the group, The Adorables, who recorded a record and began singing backing vocals for Golden World Records. Lewis debuted as a solo artist in 1966 with Can't Shake It Loose while also beginning to do outside backing vocals sessions. She met Motown Records' in-house backing group The Andantes, and one day when one of the girls could not make the session for Stevie Wonder's "Up-Tight", Lewis stepped in and did it as well as several other Motown sessions. She signed to Solid Hit Bound Records and released a string of singles, including "Look At What I Almost Missed", "Warning", "No One to Love", "No Baby No", and "The Loser". From the late 1960s on, she became a permanent backing singer for Aretha Franklin, Isaac Hayes and later on George Clinton too. She wrote several songs for Isaac Hayes.