The Queen of Delta Soul, Barbara Lynn Ozen was born on January 16, 1942 in Beaumont, TX, where sthe still resides today. This is not to say that she has not traveled the world, despite an aversion to flying. Her lifelong career began with her first national release, "You'll Lose A Good Thing," in 1962.
“I got started in grade school, I guess you’d say. I was very young then,” Barbara says. “I’d have had to be about 12, 13, you know. And I was already writing too, at an early age– writing poems, setting them to music.” She cites a wide range of early influences. “Gatemouth Brown, people like Etta James,” she says. “Ruth Brown, and I also liked Brenda Lee.” Not to mention Elvis Presley. “It goes back to grade school on into high school, because I was doing a lot of his songs,” she says. “I had this girl group that I named Bobbie Lynn & the Idols. So we were doing some of Elvis’ stuff, like ‘Jailhouse Rock,’ ‘Don’t Be Cruel.’
“My mother went out and bought me an Arthur Godfrey ukulele. I think it was $10.95, or something like that,” she continues. “She just went out and bought it because I told them I wanted to play guitar. I didn’t want to play keyboard anymore. Because that’s what I first started playing on. So I switched from playing piano to the guitar, because I thought it was such an odd instrument for a lady to play.”
She had just graduated from Herbert High school when producer Huey Meaux was tipped to her by Joe Barr. Her first relase, "Dina and Petrina," which was released on Meaux's Eric label and later on the her Jamie LP, "You'll Lose a Good Thing," was based on two friends she still had more than 50 years later in Beaumont, Texas. Her breakthrough single, her first release on Jamie, knocked Ray Charles off the No.1 spot in the R&B charts. It too was also based on someone she continues to see fifty years later in Beaumont.
“It was a true story,” Barbara says. “I was going with this guy, and we had a little spat like most people do. I told him, ‘If you lose me, you’re gonna lose a good thing!’” Huey Meaux brought her to Cosimo Matassa’s self-named recording studio at 521 Governor Nicholls Street in New Orleans to cut it. “He talked with him and told him that ‘I’ve got Barbara Lynn here, and we done already recorded these songs, but we would like to go to your studio and get ‘em recorded better,’” Lynn says. “They told us to come on, and we did.”
Her career took off from there. She performed “You'll Lose A Good Thing” overseas, on American Bandstand, and at the Apollo Theater in New York. The song was also recorded by Aretha Franklin and became a big hit by another Huey Meaux-produced artist, Freddie Fender.
Barbara Lynn toured with the likes of B.B. King, Jackie Wilson and Gladys Knight and the Pips, and the Rolling Stones had her hit, "Oh Baby (We Got a Good Thing Goin')," on one of their London/Decca albums after Mick Jagger called her to say the Rolling Stones were goind to record it. “Huey called me one evening and told me that he had someone that wanted to speak to me,” says Lynn. “And it was Mick Jagger. ‘God, The Rolling Stones want to talk to me?’ [Hue]) said, ‘Yeah, doll, I think they want to do one of your songs!’ I said, ‘Oh, great!’ And Mick talked to me, and he said, ‘Yeah, Barbara, we would like to do “Oh! Baby (We Got A Good Thing Goin’)”–with your permission, of course.’ I said, ‘You’ve got it! You’ve got it!’”
"Second Fiddle Girl,” her follow-up single to "You'll Lose a Good Thing," made No. 63 on the pop chart. “I could just go in a room and make up some songs, the lyrics and title, and write a song like that,” notes Barbara. Mac Rebennack, aka Dr. John, provided the Allen Toussaint-style piano riffs. Barbara also penned the touching, Latin-tinged flip side, “Letter To Mommy And Daddy,” recorded the next day. “Now that was a true song,” says Lynn. “I was in California for a while right after I finished high school. And I started getting lonely there. I wrote a song over at my cousin’s house: this is a ‘Letter To Mommy And Daddy,’ telling them how much I miss them. I think that was my first big trip away from home.”
Before 1962 ended, Jamie issued another steamy self-penned Lynn gem, “You’re Gonna Need Me” (work began on the song on July 10, and her vocal was completed in October). It sailed to No. 13 R&B and No. 65 pop in the first weeks of the new year. Clark welcomed her back to Bandstand in January to lip-synch it.
Barbara harked back to Elvis's admitted strong influence on her (see the liner notes to The Jamie Singles Collection 1962-1965 for more information) for a reworking of 1956's “Don’t Be Cruel.” “It was Huey’s idea for me to do it,” she says. “Huey would basically pick out the songs, and we’d look over them. And he’d tell me, ‘Doll’–he always called me Doll–‘Doll, you think you would like to do this number, “Don’t Be Cruel?”’ I guess I was an easy-going person. I’d just say, ‘Okay. All right, we’ll do it!’ And so we’d go in and record it.” Lynn’s remake of the Otis Blackwell composition made a No. 93 pop showing in early 1963
Barbara wasn’t responsible for creating the lachrymose “(I Cried At) Laura’s Wedding” (pop songsmiths Dick Manning and Kathleen Twomey were), but her heartbroken treatment of the dramatic “triangle” song clicked with pop buyers, sending it to No. 68 in mid-‘63. “When it really came out, over in my hometown, I must have got a dozen calls that day to find out, did I really have a sister named Laura?” Barbara says. “And I didn’t have a sister named Laura. Of course, I have a lot of stepsisters and brothers, but I don’t have one named Laura. It was just a song that Huey Meaux went out and picked, and wanted me to do it.”
In 1999, Barbar Lynn was given a Pioneer Award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundationalong with Patti LaBelle, Joe Simon, Ashford and Simpson and Brenda Holloway. Smokey Robinson, who presented the award to her, leaned over and kissed her and said, ‘Barbara you still look good’ and I said ‘Smokey so do you.’”
