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Flora Yvonne Fair Strain (October 21, 1942 – March 6, 1994), known professionally as Yvonne Fair, was an American singer, best known for her 1975 recording of "It Should Have Been Me".
Flora Yvonne Coleman was born in Richmond, Virginia on October 12, 1942. She dropped out of high school in the eleventh grade to marry Leory Fair, and gave birth to their son shortly after. At the recommendation of her husband, she joined the Chantels and then the James Brown Revue in 1961. While performing with Brown, she recorded a few singles for King Records, including "I Found You", which he later re-worked into his own signature hit "I Got You (I Feel Good)".
She later linked up with Chuck Jackson who took her to Motown Records. Fair had a small part as a singer in the Motown produced film Lady Sings the Blues (1972). While on Motown, she was the opening act for the Temptations, the Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder. Fair worked with producer Norman Whitfield on a series of singles: "Love Ain't No Toy", "Walk Out the Door If You Wanna", and her cover version of "Funky Music Sho' 'Nuff Turns Me On". All these featured on her only album in 1975 titled The Bitch Is Black, which was re-released on CD for the first time more than 30 years later.
Her cover of "It Should Have Been Me" reached the low end of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1976. The track proved a big hit in the UK, where it climbed to number 5 in February 1976, Fair's only UK hit record. In addition, the song featured in a special episode of BBC TV programme The Vicar of Dibley, entitled "The Handsome Stranger", originally broadcast on 25 December 2006.
By the 1980s, Fair had retired from singing. She worked as Dionne Warwick's wardrobe coordinator.
Fair died at the age of 51, from cancer in Las Vegas, Nevada, on March 6, 1994.
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