Adams reaches #3 on Billboard chart

The month of March is Women’s History Month and while many talented and notable women call Linden home, there is one most may not have heard of. Her name is Marie Adams. She was born Ollie Marie Givens in Linden on Oct. 19, 1925.

Her youth was spent performing in gospel groups, but it was after she moved to Houston, Texas and married that her career as a gospel and R&B singer really began, taking her husband’s last name and eventually dropping her first.

Her first recordings were made for Peacock Records, accompanied by Bill Harvey’s band.

She toured the country in the early 1950s, appearing on shows featuring legends such as Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Jimmy Forrest, and even B.B. King. During her time with Peacock Records she had two songs, “I’m Gonna Play the Honky Tonks” and “My Search is Over” which reached number three on the Billboard R&B chart. This made hers the most successful record on the label at that time.

She eventually joined the Johnny Otis band and a featured singer in 1953 and made the move to Los Angeles. During much of the 1950s while she toured with the Johnny Otis band she was a popular performer, known as “TV Mama.” It was also during this time that she recruited two sisters, Sadie and Francine McKinley, and formed the group The Three Tons of Joy.

While Adams never again found the chart success she had during her early years with Peacock Records, her group did achieve number two on the UK Singles Chart in 1958 with the song, “Ma! He’s Making Eyes at Me”.

In a follow up to the song’s success, Adams and Otis recorded “Bye Bye Baby”, a duet, which reached number 20 in Britain.

In the early 1960s Adams and her group left the Johnny Otis Show, but continued to work in the Los Angeles area. In 1972, Adams began working with Otis again and they toured Britain.

She continued working with him until she retired in 1980. She passed away in Houston in 1998 at age 72.

Indeed, Adams is a legend, an icon, and her soulful voice and larger than life performances will certainly live on in the histories of women in entertainment and the histories of Linden, Texas, a place where talent is born.