The “Golden Hits Of The 70s” 

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ANITA WARD

“RING MY BELL”

(FREDERICK KNIGHT)

Juana 3422

No. 1   June 30, 1979

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Anita Ward (b. Dec. 20, 1957, Memphis, TN) was always interested in music. While attending Rush College

in Holly Springs, Mississippi, she sang in their a cappella choir and with the Rush Singers, who appeared

on an album with Metropoli­tan Opera star Leontyne Price.

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While Anita worked days as a substi­tute elementary-school teacher, her manager sent photos, bio sheets,

and demo tapes out to record companies. FREDERICK KNIGHT, president of Juana Records, agreed to

record some tunes with Ward.

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Fred had a tune in his head that he had hoped to place with 11-year-old Stacy Lattisaw.   “It was then a

teenybop­per type of song, about kids talking on the telephone,” Knight told Bob Gilbert and Gary Theroux

in The Top Ten.   “Ring My Bell” had to be rewritten, but once Freddie did so, and once Anita moved her

way through the suggestive romp–which featured Knight playing a synthesized drum–the record became

a stone-cold smash, topping both Billboard’s pop and R & B charts.

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‘”Ring My Bell’ was almost an accident,” Ward recalled to Cashbox.   “When we went into the studio, we

had no intention whatsoever of cutting a disco number.   We were down to our last number in the studio,

and we realized that we needed something up tempo.”   Anita was not even enthusiastic about her hit.   “I

am not real­ly a disco queen,” she told Blues & Soul.   “You see, I’m basically just a naive, shy little church

girl.   I don’t smoke and I don’t drink.”    Ward had never even been to a disco when her bell-ringer was

reverberating off the walls of countless dance halls.

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Ward’s first album, Songs of Love (1979), was a huge seller.   Before year’s end, one more single and

another, tamer LP were issued.   Only the single, “Don’t Drop My Love” (#87, 1979), sparked a mild

interest.   It is quite possible that Anita made no further recordings.