Rita Coolidge (born May 1, 1945) is an American recording artist. During the 1970s and 1980s, her songs were on Billboard magazine's pop, country, adult contemporary, and jazz charts, and she won two Grammy Awards with fellow musician Kris Kristofferson. Her recordings include "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher," "We're All Alone", "I'd Rather Leave While I'm in Love" and the theme song for the 1983 James Bond film Octopussy: "All Time High".
After singing around Memphis, Coolidge was discovered by Delaney & Bonnie, who worked with her in Los Angeles. There, she became a background singer for artists including Leon Russell, Joe Cocker, Harry Chapin, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Dave Mason, Graham Nash, and Stephen Stills. She was featured in Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour and album, singing Russell's and Bonnie Bramlett's song "Superstar." Coolidge did not receive songwriting credits for "Superstar" which later became a hit for The Carpenters. She became known as "The Delta Lady" and inspired Russell to write a song of the same name for her.
Coolidge didn't receive songwriting credits for the piano coda in the 1971 single "Layla" by Eric Clapton's band Derek and the Dominos. In 2016, Coolidge stated that she recorded a demo with the band's drummer Jim Gordon, before they went to England to record with Clapton. Once they met with Clapton, Coolidge played the piece she composed and she gave him a cassette. Clapton, impressed by the piece, used it as part of the song in the coda section. She tried to contact Clapton, but was told by his manager Robert Stigwood, "What are you gonna do? You’re a girl. You don't have money to fight this."
In November 1970, she met Kris Kristofferson at the Los Angeles airport when they were both catching the same flight to Tennessee. The two recorded several duet albums, which sold well and earned the duo a Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 1974 for "From the Bottle to the Bottom", and in 1976 for "Lover Please."
Coolidge's greatest success on the pop charts came during 1977–1978 with four consecutive top 25 hits, remakes of Jackie Wilson's "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher", Boz Scaggs' "We're All Alone", the Temptations' "The Way You Do The Things You Do", and Marcia Hines' "You". In 1997, Coolidge was one of the founding members of Walela, a Native American music trio, that also included her sister Priscilla and her daughter Laura Satterfield. The trio released studio albums in 1997 (Walela) and 2000 (Unbearable Love), a live album and DVD (Live in Concert) in 2004 and a compilation album (The Best of Walela) in 2007. Walela means hummingbird in Cherokee. Coolidge considered this group important, not only in honoring her Cherokee ancestors but also in bringing their culture to others.
