The tune was written by James Banks, Eddie Marion and Henderson Thigpen, who had beforehand written hits for Little Milton, the Bar-Kays and different Stax Information artists. Based on Thigpen, he and Banks have been brainstorming concepts for songs at Stax Studio (quote:)”making an attempt to give you…one thing completely different. When folks get severe, they are saying: ‘Hey, let’s speak man to man’…We thought it might be fascinating to have a tune with any individual developing [with]: ‘Hey, let’s speak lady to lady’.” Thigpen had lately overheard his spouse on the telephone arguing with a pal about an concerned couple of their acquaintance, and – with Eddie Marion – Thigpen and Banks accomplished their “Lady to Lady” tune structuring it as a telephone name from a spouse to her husband’s mistress.
“Lady to Lady” was first supplied to Inez Foxx, then signed to Stax’s Volt label, who turned it down as a result of – in keeping with Banks – she didn’t need to do the spoken intro, feeling that format may solely work for a male singer. Round this time Shirley Brown was launched to Stax president Jim Stewart by Albert King in whose reside revue she’d carried out whereas an adolescent: Stewart was impressed sufficient by Brown to himself produce her Stax debut recording – Stewart’s first manufacturing job in two years – of “Lady to Lady” (Stewart co-produced the observe with Al Jackson Jr.) with Brown chopping her vocal in a single take. Brown would state in a 1975 interview (quote:)”The fellows who wrote [‘Woman to Woman’] sang it by way of to me and I felt it wanted a rap to start it, so I wrote one off the highest of my head”; nonetheless the tune’s co-writer James Banks has said that the spoken intro was a part of the tune when it was supplied to Inez Foxx, whose dislike of the “rap” prompted her to show the tune down.
