Hunt, Geraldine

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Origin: St. Louis, Missouri, 🇺🇸 - Montréal, Québec, 🇨🇦
Biography:

Geraldine Hunt (born February 10, 1945 in St. Louis, Missouri - Thursday 22nd October 2022) was a Canadian R&B singer best known for the 1980 #1 Hot Dance Music/Club Play hit "Can't Fake the Feeling".

Hunt's parents are Rosie Lee Vickers and Frank Milligan. Her father was a one-man band, and her grandmother, Louella Reed, was a singer on the Chitlin Circuit. In 1947 her family relocated to Chicago. While growing up on Chicago's south side Hunt discovered her musical talent. Living in that part of Chicago was not easy; recalls Geraldine. "On the weekends, we had to sleep on the floor, gangs were shooting through the house; I had been beaten up at gunpoint once, It was rough. We were living below middle class."

Despite the bleak living conditions of her childhood, there were bright spots also. A notable time in her life was her years at Hyde Park High School. Her classmate and best friend at school was the late American soul singer-songwriter Minnie Riperton. Besides Hunt and Riperton, the school also produced a girl group called Coffee who covered Ruby Andrews' "Casanova" in 1980.

Career
Hunt began her recording career as a teenager with several singles released from 1962: she had her first glimmer of success in 1970 when "You & I" a duet with Charlie Hodges reached #45 on the R&B chart in Billboard and in 1972 Hunt's remake of "Baby I Need Your Loving" reached #47 R&B.

In 1975 Hunt relocated to Montreal, Quebec where she recorded her first album in 1978, the disco-oriented Sweet Honesty. In 1980 Hunt's second album No Way yielded the track "Can't Fake the Feeling" which reached #1 on the club chart in Billboard where it spent a total of seven weeks: with Top 40 radio then being disco-resistant "Can't Fake the Feeling" had little mainstream success reaching #58 R&B. However the track did afford Hunt a hit in France at #10 and charted in the UK at #44.

In 1982 she helped write and produce some of the music for Chéri.

Hunt was the mother of three children; Rosalind Hunt of the musical group Chéri, singer Freddie James and writer Jeanne (Dupuis) Croteau.

Star performer, 1980s disco queen, blues singer, jazz vocalist, composer/arranger and producer—Geraldine Hunt is all of these things. Since she dominated the early 1980s disco charts with her #1 smash hit Can't Fake The Feeling, music fans and critics have exalted her talents, compositions and irresistible rhythms of her unique sound.

Although it's extremely difficult for a Black, English-speaking American to make her mark in the predominantly French-speaking province of Quebec, Geraldine did just that early on in her career. Her recordings in French, J'ai mal and Ne me dis pas adieu, rode the top of the charts in France as well as in Quebec, with the latter achieving the #1 chart position in both locales.

Geraldine has become a mainstay on the cabaret circuit in North America, Europe and Asia.