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Agatha Natalia Weston was born in Detroit in 1939 and signed with Motown in 1961. Her first hit came by accident in 1963, when a radio DJ flipped the single It Should Have Been Me and played the B-side, Love Me All the Way, which reached No. 24 on the R&B chart. She followed with Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While), a No. 4 R&B hit later covered by the Isley Brothers, Blood, Sweat & Tears, the Doobie Brothers and Phil Collins, and then Helpless in 1966.

Her 1966 duet with Marvin Gaye, It Takes Two, reached No. 14 pop and No. 16 in the UK, but Motown paired Gaye with Tammi Terrell for the follow-up records. In 1967 Weston left the label, sued over royalties and moved to Los Angeles with her husband, Motown A&R head Mickey Stevenson, who got his own imprint at MGM. Her later path ran through civil rights recordings, a move to Israel to mentor young singers and an unexpected UK dance-chart comeback.

• On her MGM album This Is America she recorded Lift Every Voice and Sing, with single proceeds donated to the United Negro College Fund.
• She performed the anthem for the 1972 Wattstax concert film.
• She cut a duet album with Johnny Nash in 1969 and guest-starred on The Bill Cosby Show in March 1971.
• Working with Ian Levine’s Motor City Records, she topped the UK Hi-NRG chart with Signal Your Intention and released the album Investigate in 1990.
• In August 2013 she was inducted into the inaugural class of the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame at Cleveland State University.