Cheryl Lynn, an American disco, R&B, and soul vocalist, was born Lynda Cheryl Smith on March 11, 1957, in Los Angeles, California, to Opal Smith, a pianist and music minister at the city’s Church of the Living God. Cheryl was a member of the choir there when she was younger.
Lynn’s professional music performance career began in 1976, when she was 19 and working as a backup vocalist for the national touring company of the musical drama The Wiz.
During the six-month national tour, she played the dramatic role of Evillene, the Wicked Witch of the West, with talent and perseverance.
However, the nation discovered her the following year when she appeared on the television comedy show “The Gong Show.” She received 30 points for her performance of “You Are So Beautiful” by Joe Crocker. Surprisingly, she won and received a recording contract from Columbia Records right away.
Lynn’s most famous disco smash composition was “Got To Be Real,” a Billboard Hot 100 single that peaked at #1 and stayed on the charts for 26 weeks in 1979. It sold over a million copies and became the theme song for LGBTQ communities across the country. In 1981, she released “Shake It Up Tonight,” which peaked at #5 on the R&B and disco dance charts and stayed there for 19 weeks.
Lynn’s next hits were “If You Were Mine,” which reached #4 on the R&B chart in 1981 and stayed there for 16 weeks, and “Instant Love” which peaked at #16 on the R&B chart and also remained there for 16 weeks in 1982.
Lynn had greater success with “Encore” which peaked at #1 on the R&B chart in 1984 and stayed on charts for 22 weeks. “Every time I Try to Say Goodbye,” was a top 10 single, reaching #7 and it stayed charted for 14 weeks in 1989. “Whatever It Takes,” reached #26 and remained on charts for 12 weeks in 1990. Her 1996 album, Good Time was distributed only in part of Europe and Japan. The following year, 1997, Lynn performed on HBO’s Sinbad’s Summer Soul Jam 4 hosted by David Adkins, better known by his stage name Sinbad.
Lynn recorded “Sweet Kind of Life” for the soundtrack of the animated film Shark Tale in 2004, and her signature song, “Got To Be Real,” was inducted into the Los Angeles Dance Music Hall of Fame in 2005.
Cheryl Lynn has released eight albums in total, including her fifth album, Preppie (1983), which showcased her own creative abilities as a lyricist. Except for “Encore,” which was written by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Lynn wrote all of the songs on the album. Soul Music Records released her album Got to Be Real: The Columbia Anthology in 2019. This work consists of a 31-track retrospective drawn from six of her eight albums.