| Just Be My Lady | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Larry Graham |
| Cover: | Just Be My Lady.jpg |
| Released: | 1981 |
| Studio: | The Music Machine, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, California |
| Genre: | R&B, funk |
| Label: | Warner |
| Producer: | Larry Graham |
| Prev Title: | One in a Million You |
| Prev Year: | 1980 |
| Next Title: | Sooner or Later |
| Next Year: | 1982 |
Just Be My Lady is an album by the American R&B and funk musician Larry Graham, released in 1981.[1] [2] Graham re-recorded the title track for his 1998 album, GCS 2000.[3]
The album peaked at No. 46 on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart.[4] It peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard Top Black Albums chart.[5]
Graham continued to move away from funk music, putting more emphasis on his R&B ballads.[6] He produced the album and played almost all of the instruments.[7] "Guess Who" is a cover of the Jesse Belvin song.
The Washington Informer thought that "Graham has established himself as a vocal personality that rivals, perhaps overshadows, his instrumental personality—one drips with tenderness while the other booms furiously."[8] Stereo Review called the album "a set of slow ballads oozed out in Lou Rawls-like low gear."[9] The Bangor Daily News determined that "what traces of his old R&B background exist have been pasteurized and homogenized."[10]
AllMusic wrote that "some selections are shaded with Graham's doo wop and gospel influence, and all have much appeal." Dave Marsh, in The New Rolling Stone Record Guide, dismissed Graham as "one of those lugubriously philosophizing soul crooners."