Born July 14, 1950.

Died February 3, 1999.

Guthrie was born in Okemah, Oklahoma and raised in Newark, New Jersey. In school, she studied classical music, and her father began teaching her piano when she was eight years old. By the early 1970s, she had joined vocal groups such as The Ebonettes and the Matchmakers, meanwhile working as an elementary school teacher. When a backup singer scheduled to sing on Aretha Franklin's 1974 single "I'm in Love" fell ill, Guthrie took the vocalist's place beside Cissy Houston; thus Guthrie would happily state that her career on record began "at the top".

She died of uterine cancer on February 3, 1999, at the age of 48, and was interred in Fairmount Cemetery in Newark, New Jersey.