Tag Archives: Hank Ballard

The Royals were formed in Detroit in 1950 by singers Henry Booth, Charles Sutton, Lawson Smith, and Sonny Woods. Led by Sutton’s clean tenor, the group (with periodic vocal help from guitarist and arranger Alonzo Tucker) also apparently presented Levi Stubbs (later on from the Four Tops) and Jackie Wilson …

In 1970, three Cleveland, OH, natives dubbed themselves Sly, Slick & Wicked and began a long-lasting career that handled many paths in the annals of soul. John F. Wilson (Sly), Charles Still (Slick), and Madison Sexton (Wicked) had been high-school close friends whose talents nearly immediately arrived the group within …

The senseless loss of life of young pianist Johnny Ace while indulging in a round of Russian roulette backstage at Houston’s City Auditorium on Christmas Day of 1954 will overshadow his relatively brief but illustrious recording career on Duke Information. That is clearly a pity, for Ace’s mild, plaintive vocal …

Few feminine R&B famous actors enjoyed the type of constant acclaim Etta Wayne received within a career that spanned 6 decades; the celebrated maker Jerry Wexler once known as her “the best of all contemporary blues performers,” and she documented several enduring strikes, including “FINALLY,” “Inform Mama,” “I’d Rather Move …

In the wonderful world of early tempo & blues and doo wop, Hank Ballard was the definition of earthiness. Though inspired by high-energy gospel vocal groupings, Ballard’s music using the Midnighters couldn’t have already been more diametrically compared with regards to subject material: his lyrics had been filled up with …

The backup group with R&B tale Hank Ballard, this Detroit band was called the Royals if they formed in 1952. Henry Booth, Charles Sutton, Lawson Smith, and Sonny Woods had been the initial lineup. Ballard changed Smith in 1953 and became the business lead singer. They truly became the Midnighters …

If Redd Foxx was the ruler from the party record through the ’50s and ’60s, after that certainly Rudy Ray Moore upped the ante through the ’70s having a succession of triple-X-rated platters which were thus hot most shops could only offer them beneath the counter-top, even through the height …

Screamin’ Jay Hawkins was probably the most outrageous performer extant during rock’s dawn. Susceptible to emerging from coffins on-stage, a flaming skull called Henry his continuous friend, Screamin’ Jay was an insanely theatrical shape long before it had been even remotely suitable. Hawkins’ life tale is nearly as bizarre as …

He hardly ever received the accolades directed at famous brands Sam Cooke, Clyde McPhatter, and Adam Brown, but Small Willie John rates as you of R&B’s most influential performers. His muscular high timbre and tremendous technical and psychological range belied his early age (his initial hit emerged when he was …

Chubby Checker was the unrivaled king from the rock & roll dance craze; although a lot of the dances his information advertised — the Pony, “the Travel,” as well as the Hucklebuck, to cite simply three — possess lengthy since faded into obscurity, his most well-known strike, “The Twist,” continues …