BENJAMIN EARL NELSON, 'SAVE THE LAST DANCE FOR ME'

Today, The Grandma has been listening to some music. She has chosen Ben E.King's songs, the American singer, who was born on a day like today in 1938.

Benjamin Earl King (September 28, 1938-April 30, 2015) was an American soul and R&B singer and record producer. 

He is best known as the singer and co-composer of Stand by Me -U.S. Top 10 hit, both in 1961 and later in 1986 (when it was used as the theme to the film of the same name), a number one hit in the United Kingdom in 1987, and number 25 on the RIAA's list of Songs of the Century- and as one of the principal lead singers of the R&B vocal group The Drifters, notably singing the lead vocals of one of their biggest global hit singles (and only U.S. No. 1 hit), Save the Last Dance for Me.

Besides Stand By Me, his songs There Goes My Baby and Spanish Harlem also appeared on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.

More information: Ben E. King

Ben E. King was born Benjamin Earl Nelson on September 28, 1938, in Henderson, North Carolina, and moved to Harlem, New York, at the age of nine in 1947. 

King began singing in church choirs, and in high school formed the Four B's, a doo-wop group that occasionally performed at the Apollo Theater.

In 1958, King (still using his birth name) joined a doo-wop group called the Five Crowns. Later that year, the Drifters' manager George Treadwell fired the members of the original Drifters, and replaced them with the members of the Five Crowns.

King had a string of R&B hits with the group on Atlantic Records. He co-wrote and sang lead on the first Atlantic hit by the new version of the Drifters, There Goes My Baby (1959). He sang lead on a succession of hits by the team of Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, including Save the Last Dance for Me, This Magic Moment, and I Count the Tears. 

King recorded only thirteen songs with the Drifters -two backing other lead singers and eleven lead vocal performances- including an unreleased song called Temptation (later redone by Drifters vocalist Johnny Moore). The last of the King-led Drifters singles to be released was Sometimes I Wonder, which was recorded May 19, 1960, but not issued until June 1962.

In May 1960, King left the Drifters, assuming the stage name Ben E. King in preparation for a solo career. Remaining with Atlantic Records on its Atco imprint, King scored his first solo hit with the ballad Spanish Harlem (1961).

His next single, Stand by Me, written with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, ultimately would be voted as one of the Songs of the Century by the Recording Industry Association of America. King cited singers Brook Benton, Roy Hamilton and Sam Cooke as influences for his vocals of the song.

Stand by Me, There Goes My Baby, Spanish Harlem, and Save the Last Dance for Me were all named in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll; and each of those records has earned a Grammy Hall of Fame Award. 

King's other well-known songs include Don't Play That Song (You Lied), Amor, Seven Letters, How Can I Forget, On the Horizon, Young Boy Blues, First Taste of Love, Here Comes the Night, Ecstasy, and That's When It Hurts. 

In the summer of 1963, King had a Top 30 hit with I (Who Have Nothing), which reached the Top 10 on New York's radio station, WMCA.

More information: Soul Music

King's records continued to place well on the Billboard Hot 100 chart until 1965. British pop bands began to dominate the pop music scene, but King still continued to make R&B hits. Some of these hits include What is Soul?, Tears, Tears, Tears, So Much Love, and Til I Can't Take It Anymore. 

In 1975, King made a comeback on the top 40 Billboard Hot 100 chart with the Disco hit Supernatural Thing. Supernatural Thing peaked at number 5 on Billboard Hot 100 and peaked at number 1 on the Billboard R&B Charts. It was also nominated for a Grammy at the 18th Annual Grammy Awards in 1975 for best R&B vocal performance, male. 

In 1977, King collaborated with Average White Band in releasing the album Benny & Us. The album spawned two top 40 R&B hits, A Star in the Ghetto and Get It Up.

King returned to the Drifters in late 1982 in the United Kingdom, and sang with them until the group's break-up and reorganization in 1986. From 1983 until the band's break-up, the other members of this incarnation of the Drifters were Johnny Moore, Joe Blunt, and Clyde Brown.

He was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009.

On March 27, 2012, the Songwriters Hall of Fame announced that Stand By Me would receive its 2012 Towering Song Award and that King would be honored with the 2012 Towering Performance Award for his recording of the song.

King was active in his charitable foundation, the Stand By Me Foundation, which helps to provide education to deserving youths. He was a resident of Teaneck, New Jersey, from the late 1960s onwards.

King toured the United Kingdom in 2013 and played concerts in the United States as late as 2014, despite reported health problems.

Following a brief illness, he died at Hackensack University Medical Center on April 30, 2015, at the age of 76.

More information: Min-On Concert Association

 In my vocal, I think you can hear something
of my earlier times when I'd sing in subway halls
for the echo and perform doo-wop on street corners.
But I had a lot of influences, too
-singers like Sam Cooke, Brook Benton and Roy Hamilton.

Ben E. King