Peebles' enlisted Willie Mitchell to produce the album and songwriters such as Don Bryant (with whom she was in a relationship and would go on to marry in 1974) and George Jackson.

[citation needed] Straight from the Heart was released later in 1971 and the song "I Pity the Fool", originally recorded by Bobby Bland in 1961, became a minor hit for Peebles, as it peaked at no.

[3] Straight from the Heart was well received by critics, with Richie Unterberger awarding the album 4.5 out of 5 stars in his AllMusic review.

Unterberger described the album as "not only a triumph for Peebles, but [Straight from the Heart] illustrated how the Hi label had surpassed its crosstown Stax rival for quality Memphis soul in the early '70s".

[1] In his 1981 review of Straight from the Heart in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies, music journalist Robert Christgau gave the album an A− and wrote that "why gritty singing like this can't be heard on 'progressive' radio when a borderline hysteric like Lydia Pense is an automatic add ought to be investigated by the Civil Rights Commission.