As Ms. Lewis tells it, the band were like a tight family. “We cooked dinner and had breakfast together. It was like a family kind of thing. I thought we were very fortunate to be able to do that. It gave us a lot of being able to understand each other, respecting each other… you learn things and musically it made us very close. We had great communication on stage and our band was famous for being very tight — the group was viciously in the groove and it was effortless, almost, because we knew each other so well. It was a beautiful thing.”

Ms. Lewis (née Paulette Parker) was from Tulsa, OK, and was classically trained as a pianist. After a dispiriting college experience, during which she endured relentless racist harassment, she returned to her parents’ home. She caught the attention of Ike and Tina Turner, then one of the biggest acts in R&B and rock, while performing in a nightclub. They invited her to become an Ikette in 1969 and she learned from the best—Tina herself—how to present herself onstage. She stayed with the Turner Revue for two years.

Fortunately, Cherry Red Records reissued all three Maxayn albums (Maxayn, Mindful, and Bail Out for Fun!) in 2018 as a CD box set, Reloaded: The Complete Recordings 1972-1974, which is definitive, informative, and funky as hell. The band wasn’t sampled by hip hoppers as frequently as other bands of funk’s golden age, but prominent acts such as Digable Planets and Jurassic 5 were among those who did.

After the band broke up, Maxayn and Andre continued working together in the disco band Mandré. Ms. Lewis has been working steadily as a voice teacher, background vocalist, and solo act for many years. Be sure to check out Maxayn’s music! We’ll be playing more of their work on House of Funk in the future.