Big lady, big voice, big hair – Jean Knight had it all. Mr Big Stuff was her takedown of that guy all women know, the one who thinks he’s God’s gift. He’s begging to be taken down, and Jean did the job for us all in this stone-cold funk and soul classic.

Jean Caliste (Knight is her stage name) came from New Orleans and by the late Sixties she was working as a baker in a university cafe, having more or less abandoned her dream of a music career.

She was already in her late twenties when a local songwriter invited her to record some of his songs at Malaco studio in Jackson, Mississippi. This was one of them.

Initially it was rejected by just about every label that heard it, sending Jean straight back to the bakery. But another song recorded at the same session – Groove Me by King Floyd – became a hit soon afterwards and a publisher from Stax who had sat in on the sessions persuaded his label to release this song too.

Both songs are similar, featuring the same two-bar off-beat basslines, and both have arrangements by jazz producer Wardell Quezerge, a multi-talented New Orleans musician and producer, known there as “the Creole Beethoven.”

Released on Stax in 1971, it sold two million copies and reached no.2 in the US charts, propelled there by this fantastic performance on a new TV show called Soul Train.

In 1989 the Beastie Boys famously sampled the “Who do you think you are?” line for a number on Paul’s Boutique, and again five years later on a song on TLC’s great album CrazySexyCool.