Crawford first performed at club gigs from Cincinnati to Saint-Tropez, but made her name in the mid-1970s in New York, where she sang with jazzmen George Benson and Cannonball Adderley.

[7] In 1978, Crawford sang vocals on "Hoping Love Will Last", the opening song on side two of Please Don't Touch!, which was the second solo album by the former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett.

[3][9] A specially re-recorded version was featured in the soundtrack for the films Sharky's Machine and Jackie Brown,[6] and appeared in commercials in the early 2000s.

[10][11] Her follow-up solo efforts included "One Day I'll Fly Away" (1980) and "You Might Need Somebody" (1981), which became soul standards, and a cover of the Tony Joe White song, popularised by Brook Benton, "Rainy Night in Georgia".

[6] Naked And True (1995) brought Crawford back to her roots: it included George Benson's "Give Me the Night", and confirmed her soul heritage by featuring Funkadelic members Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell and the Fred Wesley Horns.

[13] Randy Crawford was set to perform "The Farewell South Africa" tour in Cape Town and Pretoria in October 2018 but it was cancelled due to her suffering a stroke.