George McCrae

George McCrae, the Miami, Florida-based performer, helped shape the first wave of disco alongside his spouse Gwen McCrae through his 1974 R&B number-one single “Rock Your Baby.” Born in 1944 in West Palm Beach, he assembled a vocal group in the early 1960s that eventually welcomed Gwen, then his future wife. The two soon performed as a duo; once Gwen achieved solo success, George served as her manager while also contributing backing vocals.

Working with the disco architects Harry Casey and Richard Finch of KC & the Sunshine Band, who wrote and produced his material for Henry Stone’s T.K. label, McCrae scored immediately with “Rock Your Baby,” a track originally slated as a single for Gwen. The song reached the top of charts worldwide, and he quickly followed it with the double-sided hit “I Can’t Leave You Alone”/“I Get Lifted.” As tastes changed, however, his commercial momentum faded through the remainder of the decade. He kept recording through the 1980s and 1990s yet registered only one further chart entry, the 1984 single “One Step Closer (To Love),” which succeeded solely in England.

After a prolonged break from the studio, McCrae reappeared in 2009 with the album Time for a Change, issued in Germany. Seven years afterward he delivered Love, a project that revisited his soul and disco origins; it reached American listeners via eOne.