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 Data artists. In keeping with Thigpen, he and Banks have been brainstorming concepts for songs at Stax Studio (quote:)”attempting to give you…one thing totally different. When individuals get critical, they are saying: ‘Hey, let’s speak man to man’…We thought it might be attention-grabbing to have a tune with anyone arising [with]: ‘Hey, let’s speak lady to lady’.” Thigpen had just lately overheard his spouse on the cellphone arguing with a good friend about an concerned couple of their acquaintance, and – with Eddie Marion – Thigpen and Banks accomplished their “Lady to Lady” tune structuring it as a cellphone name from a spouse to her husband’s mistress.
“Lady to Lady” was first provided to Inez Foxx, then signed to Stax’s Volt label, who turned it down as a result of – in line 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 a youngster: Stewart was impressed sufficient by Brown to himself produce her Stax debut recording – Stewart’s first manufacturing activity in two years – of “Lady to Lady” (Stewart co-produced the observe with Al Jackson Jr.) with Brown slicing her vocal in a single take. Brown would state in a 1975 interview (quote:)”The blokes who wrote [‘Woman to Woman’] sang it via 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 provided to Inez Foxx, whose dislike of the “rap” brought on her to show the tune down.
