"R&B songstress Gwen Guthrie may be known for her hit song ""Ain't Nothin' Goin' On But the Rent,"" but her career was far more prolific than that one top single. She was a talented song writer who wrote about 50 songs both for herself and other musicians. She was born in 1950 in Oklahoma and grew up in Newark, New Jersey. She learned to play piano as a youngster and had formed a female music group by the time she was in high school called the Ebonettes.She found slight success in New York as the lead singer for Larry Blackmon's East Coast Band before she was asked to sing backup for the great Aretha Franklin on the top 1964 hit ""I'm In Love."" It wasn't long before she got another gig, but this time as a songwriter with Bert Coteaux Productions. She started honing her writing skills and was developing relationships with top artists like Sly Dunbar. Her connections served her well as Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare asked her to sing on one of their albums. The performance snagged her a record deal, and she soon released her first, self-titled LP.Her next release, Portrait, did similarly to her first album, but she found much more success with her 1986 album, Good to Go Lover. That album made it to number 20 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and number 89 on the Billboard 200. The success gave her the freedom to do more of her own writing instead of singing other people's work. She released Ticket to Ride in 1988 and afterwards Lifeline and Hot Times, which was her final album. Guthrie passed away from uterine cancer in February of 1999 but left a lasting legacy of her strong voice and skillful songwriting."
