Post by Lydia Purple on Jan 4, 2014 14:40:04 GMT -8
Gene McDaniels (February 12, 1935 – July 29, 2011) was an African American singer and songwriter, who had his greatest recording success in the early 1960s. Born Eugene Booker McDaniels in Kansas City, Kansas, United States, McDaniels grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. As well as singing gospel music in church, he developed a love of jazz, and learned to play the saxophone and trumpet. After forming a singing group, The Echoes of Joy, later known as The Sultans, in his teens, he studied at the University of Omaha Conservatory of Music before joining the Mississippi Piney Woods Singers, with whom he toured in California. There, he began singing in jazz clubs, achieving note with the Les McCann Trio, and came to the attention of Sy Waronker of Liberty Records.
After recording two unsuccessful singles and an album, he was teamed with producer Snuff Garrett, with whom he recorded his first hit, "A Hundred Pounds of Clay", which reached no. 3 in the Billboard Hot 100 chart in early 1961 and sold over one million copies, earning gold disc status. Its follow-up, "A Tear", was less successful but his third single with Garrett, "Tower of Strength," co-written by Burt Bacharach, reached no.5 and won McDaniels his second gold record. "Tower of Strength" reached no.49 in the UK Singles Chart, losing out to Frankie Vaughan's chart-topping version.
In 1962 he appeared performing in the movie It's Trad, Dad!, directed by Richard Lester. He continued to have minor hit records, including "Chip Chip", "Point Of No Return" and "Spanish Lace", each in 1962, but his suave style of singing gradually became less fashionable. In 1965 he moved to Columbia Records, with little success, and in 1968, after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, he left the US to live in Denmark and Sweden, where he concentrated on songwriting. He returned to the US in 1971, and recorded thereafter as Eugene McDaniels.
(Source: Wikipedia)