Luther Ingram - Pity for the Lonely (2008)

Hailing originally from Jackson, Tennessee, R&B singer and songwriter Luther Ingram spent his early career trying to make a name as a soul singer in St. Louis, New York, and Memphis. His first single, “You Never Miss Your Water,” was released on Decca in 1965; neither this nor the singles that followed generated much success, but a distribution deal between his then-label Koko and Stax Records in 1969 proved a fateful turn. Ingram began scoring R&B chart hits with 1969’s “My Honey and Me,” 1970's “Ain’t That Loving You (For More Reasons Than One)," and others. Ingram’s songwriting credits increased as well, most notably when he co-authored the Staple Singers’ classic “Respect Yourself.” In 1972 Ingram scored his biggest and best-known hit as a singer, the stirring ballad “If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don’t Want to Be Right),” which hit #3 on the pop charts and sold over a million copies. Other hits followed, but Ingram’s fortunes declined throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, as he continued to issue occasionally charting singles on a variety of labels. He stopped recording in 1992, and died from heart failure in 2007.