“(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher” is an R&B song written by Gary Jackson, Raynard Miner, and Carl Smith. It was originally recorded by Jackie Wilson for his album Higher and Higher (1967), produced by Carl Davis, and became a Top 10 pop and number one R&B hit.[2]
Rita Coolidge remade the song as “(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher” for her album Anytime…Anywhere (1977). Her version has a more moderate tempo than that of the uptempo original, and largely omits the chorus which is evidenced only in the background vocals sung under the repetition of the first verse with which she closes the song. Coolidge and her sister Priscilla Coolidge had sung background on a version of the song for a prospective album by Priscilla’s husband Booker T. Jones; when that album was shelved, Coolidge asked him if she could cut the song using his arrangement.
Released as a single, Coolidge’s version became her first major hit in nine years of recording: the track peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was kept from the No. 1 spot by “Best of My Love” by The Emotions.[26]Cash Box ranked it at No. 1.[27][28] “Higher and Higher” also reached No. 1 in Canada. Both the song and a subsequent release, “We’re All Alone“, earned Coolidge gold records for each selling a million copies.
*