“Mr. Big Stuff, who do you think you are?
Mr. Big Stuff, you’re never gonna get my love.”

One of the biggest hits ever recorded by a New Orleans artist, “Mr. Big Stuff” was almost never released. Jean Knight recorded the song in 1970; before that, she had cut a handful of singles in the mid-1960s, but none were more than neighborhood hits. By the late 1960s, performing had become little more than a pleasurable hobby as she had a full-time job baking bread at Loyola Universi...