Barbara This is Shirley: A Tribute to the Storytelling Tradition in Black Music

Hello, may I speak to Barbara?

Barbara this is Shirley

You might not know who I am but the reason I am calling you is because

I was going through my old man’s pockets this morning

And I just happened to find your name and number

How many of us can recite the above monologue by heart? It has to be part of one of the most famous song monologues in Black music history, right up there with Lenny Williams crying until the television went off. I don’t remember the first time I heard Woman to Woman, the song was just always there; playing on WTLC’s 106.7, Indianapolis’s go-to Black radio station to hear both new and old-school R&B. Shirley Brown’s speaking voice was deep and slightly southern; she sounded just like my aunties and my mom’s friends. A bluesy and soulful tune, the lyrics of Woman to Woman seeped into my psyche where I could sing them by heart at a young age.

Was this appropriate music for me to listen to as a child? Maybe not, but I’m glad there was no censorship of the music I listened to. Kidz Bop didn’t exist yet to provide kid-friendly versions of popular songs that parents could play when their children were in the car. Growing up, I listened to the music played by WTLC DJs in the car with my mom, and at the kitchen table talking to my grandma while she cooked dinner. I am so grateful for the exposure to the timeless R&B, soul, funk, and blues music made decades before I was born. It gave me a diverse musical palate and the knowledge to see the influences and lineages between artists and styles that I talk about a little further down in this essay.

Woman to Woman’s 30+ Year Impact

Spoken with conviction by Shirley Brown, the above monologue introduces us to the song, Woman to Woman, the beginning of the story of the love triangle of Shirley, Barbara, and an unnamed no-good man. Shirley was born in West Memphis Arkansas and raised in Madison Illinois, a small town in southwest Illinois that is considered a part of the Greater St. Louis area. Discovered by Blues musician Albert King at the age of 14, Shirley toured with his band for nine years and was introduced and eventually signed to Stax Records, where Woman to Woman was the last hit record for the legendary Black-owned label based in Memphis Tennessee.

Woman to Woman was released by the Truth label, a subsidiary of Stax Records in 1974 and spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard R&B Chart. Written by songwriters James Banks, Eddie Marion, and Henderson Thigpen, this song was the result of a brainstorming session, where the idea came to have a song centered on two women talking “woman to woman”. The beginning monologue, or “rap”, as Shirley Brown called it, was written by Shirley herself. In a 1975 interview, she shares: “The guys who wrote it sang it through to me and I felt it needed a rap to begin it, she bashfully admits. “So I wrote one off the top of my head and that’s the way it all happened.”

The monologue of Shirley’s phone call to Barbara goes on for a little over one minute, with her staking her claim on this man who she takes care of “from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet; to the bed he sleeps in and every piece of food he eats” With a voice reminiscent of Aretha Franklin, Shirley Brown sings passionately about her love for her husband and that any woman would do the same thing she’s doing right now for the man they love. While I hope the type of love that has people calling up mistresses instead of leaving never finds me, I’m glad it served as the inspiration for the writing of this timeless song.

An instant classic, this song has remained a staple on Black radio and has been referenced in media from Tyler Perry plays, to BET+’s The Black Hampton’s and social media memes. In a 2019 Vibe.com column on the legacy of Millie Jackson, Naima Cochrane uses the term “adultery R&B” to describe songs being released by R&B and Soul artists starting in the 1970’s that detailed stories of cheating spouses and unashamedly being the other man or woman.

The impact of Woman to Woman doesn’t stop there. Lonnie Youngblood, a saxophonist best known for playing with Jimi Hendrix, released the first answer record to Woman to Woman with his song, Man to Woman, which consists almost entirely of a spoken monologue giving his side of the story to his mistress Barbara. Against the backdrop of a traditional southern soul blues melody, Mr. Youngblood humorously refutes all of Shirley’s claims about taking care of him, and paying his car note. According to him, all he had was a mattress on the floor!

Lucky for us music listeners, we also got to hear Barbara’s response. Taking on the persona of the Barbara on the other side of that phone call in Woman to Woman, singer Barbara Mason released From His Woman to You in 1975, a song that speaks directly to Shirley, letting her know that she is quite happy with being the other woman: “Now wait a minute, Shirley, I’m a young woman and I can’t afford to do all the things you do for this man. I don’t even have a job and I can’t buy his clothes, pay his car note, and I surely can’t put money in his pocket. But I can give him what he needs when he needs it and that’s all he expects from me.”

In 1994 singer and songwriter Jewell, who was signed to Death Row records at the time, released a new version of Woman to Woman for the hip hop generation. It was included on the soundtrack to Snoop Dog’s short film, Murder Was the Case and produced by Jewell, DJ Quik, and G-One. With a distinctly 90s R&B sound and more explicit lyrics influenced by Hip Hop, with her powerful voice Jewell lets “Yolanda” know that this is her man and she is not giving him up.

And then Shirley Brown recorded an answer record to Jewell’s version, taking her song and story back! You Ain’t Woman Enough to Take My Man is a song on her 1995 Diva of Soul Album. Shirley lets Jewell, Yolanda, and any other young woman messing with her man know that they can never compare to her. Fast forward to 2008, and American Idol alums Jennifer Hudson and Fantasia Barrino united on a song directly inspired by Woman to Woman called I’m His Only Woman. It uses the same structure of its predecessor of a woman calling her man’s mistress to stake her claim and tell the other woman to back off.

Here’s a YouTube playlist of the songs in the Woman to Woman saga!

Our Music Tells Our Stories

Woman to Woman is in the grand tradition of storytelling in Black music. In the Mama’s Got the Blues chapter of Blues Legacies and Black Feminisms, Angela Davis writes about how Blues singers such as Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith expressed the sexual agency and autonomy of working class Black women post-emancipation, with their music representing a form of consciousness-raising:“women’s blues provided a cultural space for community-building among working-class black women, and that it was a space in which the coercions of bourgeois notions of sexual purity and “true womanhood” were absent.”

Descending from blues and rock & roll women such as Bessie Smith and Etta James, Shirley Brown, Barbara Mason, Marlena Shaw, Millie Jackson and other Black women singers in the late 1960s and 1970s gave voice to the experiences of everyday Black women. They spoke plainly, provocatively, and artfully about the joys, pains, and messiness of love. In a 2014 interview with Atlanta Magazine to commemorate the 40-year anniversary of Millie Jackson’s seminal concept album, Caught Up, that tells the story of a love triangle from both the wife’s and mistress’s points of view, Jackson shares about the type of women her music appealed to: “Women loved it. I was speaking to them. I was the poor people’s queen. I didn’t sell records to bougies. It was the poor people who bought my music.” These women paved the way for the Black women artists of the 90’s and 2000’s who were able to sing freely of love, sex, and heartache in a style that reflected their communities and lives as women growing up in the hip hop generation.

Talk to Me: Soul Music Monologues

American music underwent major changes in the 1970’s, including the album format transitioning from a collection of singles to a cohesive concept that took listeners on a journey through the themes the music explored. FM Radio playing longer songs and album deep cuts meant that artists were making 5, 6, 7 minute and even longer songs that showcased their musicianship, creativity, lyrical artistry, and storytelling.

The 1970’s were a popular era for monologues in R&B music and Woman to Woman and From His Woman to You fit right in. These monologues were an essential part of the story that the artist was telling through the song, and made you feel like you were listening to a short story or hearing a short play being performed. And if you were a child listening to these songs, you felt like you were getting a peek into the secret world of adulthood. A few of my favorite songs with monologues include: Cry Together by The O’Jays, Cause I Love You by Lenny Williams, I’m Catching Hell by Natalie Cole, and Love Under New Management by Miki Howard.

Shirley Brown and Barbara Mason weren’t the only ones spinning tales about love triangles. Picking up where From His Women to You left off, Richard “Dimples” Fields’ She’s Got Papers on Me (1981), with a monologue by the legendary Betty Wright, tells the man’s side of the story. Leaving the home of his mistress, Richard embodies the character of the man lamenting about feeling stuck in a marriage with a woman he doesn’t love. Betty Wright’s monologue as the wife who refuses to divorce him is my favorite part of the song: “That’s right, I got papers on you. And you do understand my dear that you must pay me to be free. That’s what I said, you’re gonna pay me for my years and my tears and all my wasted years.” And then we end with Barbara Mason playing the mistress once again in She’s Got the Papers (But I Got the Man) parts 1 and 2.

Through Black Music Our Stories Persist

R&B and Soul music in the 1970’s had a literary quality. Storytelling is in our lineage as African descended people, and whether through song, novels, movies, or plays, we find a way to speak to our experiences.

Every time I listen to these songs I am reminded of how much I miss this type of storytelling, soul, grit, and writing for the everyday, regular, working class Black person in R&B music. I try not to be the type of millennial who complains about music these days not sounding as good as past music. One, I don’t necessarily believe that and two, music can’t keep sounding the same forever; it has to innovate and move forward. There’s lots of talk online about the state of R&B today; there’s too many toxic love songs, not enough songs about true love and yearning, too much cursing in the music. But Black music, including R&B and Soul, has never been just one thing, or had one sound, or dealt with only one subject matter.

Our music has always been diverse and ever evolving to both reflect the realities of people’s lives and respond to music industry pressures and rapid technology changes. While some core realities remain the same, technology, the global economy, government policies, and changing social mores all influence how young adults are navigating relationships in the 21st century. We are and always will be storytellers, descended from griots, folktellers, preachers, performers, and writers.

Listen to this playlist of my favorite R&B and Soul storytelling!