June 26, 2026
Provided image/Jamie Record Co.
Barbara Mason, now 78, is capitalizing on her newfound TikTok fame with archival releases and soon, she says, new music.
Barbara Mason cracked the Billboard charts multiple times in the 1960s and 1970s with her soulful, often self-written ballads. So when the Philly soul singer learned, via her granddaughter, that one of her singles was trending on TikTok, she assumed it was an old hit — probably her biggest one, "Yes, I'm Ready."
Much to her surprise, Gen Z couples were "melting into a kiss" all over the platform to the tune of her cover of the Marvelettes' "Forever." The track didn't chart or even, to Mason's recollection, get much airplay when it debuted in 1968. But users have now sampled it in their videos 3.5 million times, per her record label's last count.
"When I saw all the kids on TikTok, I said, who are these children?" Mason said. "I don't even know them. And they don't know me, 'cause how could they know me? They weren't even born."
It's not clear how exactly the song spread on the social media platform. TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for those details. But Mason is making the most of the moment. The long-running Philadelphia label Jamie Record Co. released a compilation of Mason's '60s songs, most of which had never been available on streaming platforms, in May. The Francisville native is also preparing to release new original material for the first time in decades. Her last studio release was the 2007 album "Feeling Blue."
"I have country music that I've written that nobody knows that I can sing," she said. "I have jazz that I want to do. It's so much else that I want to do besides what's going on now."
Mason became a professional musician when she was still a student at John Hallahan Catholic Girls High School. The teen had no formal training or prominent place in a church choir. But she played piano, performed at talent shows in the park by her house and sang radio hits with one of her classmates. Eventually, word spread to the record producer Weldon McDougal about a local girl with a "different kind of voice," Mason said.
He got her in the studio, where she recorded her first single "Trouble Child" in 1964. She didn't have a bona fide hit, however, until she wrote and cut "Yes, I'm Ready" in 1965. The single, her third, hit No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. Mason remembers her mother going out to buy a record player so they could listen to it.
During this mid- to late-1960s, Mason helped shape the emerging Philadelphia sound, a regional brand of soul music known for its distinctive strings and horns. Joe Tarsia, the influential audio engineer and founder of Sigma Sound Studios, has called "Yes, I'm Ready" the first true Philly sound record. Though Mason recorded most of her tracks at Virtue Recording Studios on Broad Street, she occasionally worked out of Tarsia's legendary studio. Her childhood friend Norman Harris frequently did arrangements for Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff there.
"I was always given freedom to do what I wanted to do," Mason said of Sigma Sound. "And just going there, it was homey, it was like a home away from home kind of feeling when I went in. ... Everybody knew me. I knew the string players, I knew the horn players. I knew everybody."
She kept current with the '70s by experimenting with a funkier sound. The legendary late producer Curtis Mayfield, one of her favorite collaborators, worked with her on a 1973 cover of his song "Give Me Your Love," which became Mason's biggest hit since "Yes, I'm Ready." On top of the seven studio albums she released during the decade, Mason also provided vocals for the soundtrack to "Sheba Baby," the 1975 blaxploitation film starring Pam Grier.
Mason's output slowed in the '80s, when she debuted just two albums. She wouldn't make another until "Feeling Blue." But she never really stopped touring. To this day, Mason still regularly joins the lineups of showcases like the 2024 Fool in Love festival, headlined by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross at SoFi Stadium. But with the success of "Forever," she's planning her first headlining tour for 2027.
Mason admits she's been losing sleep in all the excitement and anticipation of new opportunities. But the singer, who turns 79 in August, can't imagine slowing down, much less retiring, anytime soon.
"I'm honored that people even remember me," she said. "But it's not over yet. I'm not finished yet. Not at all."
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