We all know Pam Grier earned her place in Blaxploitation lore as an actress, starring in roles in films such as Foxy Brown and Coffy.

But did  you know she could sing?

In 1971, Grier was cast in her second film, The Big Dollhouse, as a character named “Grear.” (Yeah, we agree the screenplay writers must have blown their creative juices by the time they got around to naming this character.) Not only did Grier have a large roll in this film about women serving life sentences in a tropical prison, but she sang the movie’s theme song, “Long Time Woman.”

The movie, The Big Dollhouse, was directed by Jack Hill and produced by Roger Corman. I sure would like to know what led them to cast Grier in this role that arguably launched her career and how did they discover that she could sing. Or, did they hire her to sing and then discover she was an even better actress?

“Well, 99 years is a long, long time

Well, look at me I’ll never be free,” Grier sings in this track.

The song was written by Hall Daniels, who was a co-director of Bax Music in Torrance, Calif., with Les Baxter. This firm’s catalogue still exists today, specializing in eclectic sounds. And this track from Grier certainly can be qualified as eclectic. The song opens with rolling bongos that capture the tropical vibe the movie’s director was aiming for.

In the film, Grier and a posse of other female prisoners plot how to escape the captive hands of their sadistic wardens. The enlist two sleazy men, who are snack vendors making rounds through the prison. The film, which is a classic in the wome-in-prison-exploitation genre, includes all of the sexual innuendo one would expect from a group of super hot women locked away for life in a steamy prison environment.

In the song “Long Time Woman,” there’s little to criticize about Grier’s singing. Still, she doesn’t possess the strong, it-comes-from-deep-inside sound that other 1970s soul singers could showcase.

But Grier came from a singing background. While a student at UCLA, she sang back-up for singer-composer Bobby Womack. In keeping with the Blaxploitation theme,  Womack’s composition and 1972 recording of the song “Across 110th Street” was the theme song of the film Jackie Brown (1997), which marked a major comeback for Grier in the starring and title role. She was nominated for a Golden Globe and an NAACP Image Award for her performance. In fact, director Quentin Tarantino used “Long Time Woman” on his soundtrack.

As far as we know, this is the only song credit on Grier’s remarkable resume. But it’s enough to make us wonder what her story would be like if she had made a career of her singing rather than her acting.