Gospel singer Deborah McCrary of the McCrary Sisters has died. She was 67 years old.
Deborah and her siblings learned to sing in their Nashville home, at church, and when they sat in on their father’s rehearsals. The late Rev. Samuel McCrary was a member of the legendary gospel group The Fairfield Four, and when the men finished practicing their music, the children would mimic the adults and try to recreate the harmonies.
“We would take it all in,” Deborah said in 2017. “As soon as they’d get up and leave, we’d get up and do what they did.”
While several of her siblings transitioned early into singing careers, Deborah initially worked as a nurse. But just over a decade ago, the four sisters of the family joined forces to sing as a quartet that quickly garnered critical acclaim with original songs that crossed genres from gospel to roots to R&B.
More: On ‘McCrary Sisters: Live,’ The Spotlight Turns Toward Gospel’s Go-To Backup Singers (from August 2017)
In 2013, a debilitating stroke nearly ended Deborah’s music-making.
“We had to sing a couple of days after she had a stroke, and she was missed,” her sister Alfreda said later. “I can’t sing the bottom like she sings the bottom.”
After Deborah regained the ability to sing, she wrote a song for the group, “Let It Go,” about moving past that challenge.
The McCrary Sisters’ manager says Deborah did have at least one more stroke, which led to her death.
WNXP’s Jewly Hight contributed to this reporting.
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