Writes Mehr:

Born in Philadelphia, Mason was raised on the city’s street-corner doo-wop and dreamed of making the kind of sounds she heard on the transistor radio she slept with at night. A powerful, expressive song stylist even as a teen, Mason had an early string of small hits for the tiny Arctic label, including “Trouble Child” and “Girls Have Feelings Too”– before she would write the song that would change her life, “Yes, I’m Ready.”

Interestingly, the inspiration for the song came from one of R&B music’s true giants, and a man who would later become collaborator and friend to Mason. “I was a big fan of Curtis Mayfield, and I would always listen to the different songs he had produced or written. He wrote a song for Major Lance called ‘The Monkey Time.’ And in the sing-along part, it went ‘Are you ready?’ And so I thought, ‘Boy if I slowed that down, I might have something.”

Mason’s cooing refrain was something indeed, turning “Yes, I’m Ready” into a huge pop and R&B hit in 1965, and launching her nationally. “After the song broke I was just all over the place: I did ‘American Bandstand’ and a bunch of TV shows, and I toured with Jackie Wilson, the Impressions, the Temptations, Jerry Butler — there was hardly anybody I didn’t tour with.”

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