From the RAMP Newsletter...
Ben E. King, the former lead singer of The Drifters and a man whose voice will forever be associated with his iconic solo hit, "Stand By Me," died last Thursday, April 30 in Hackensack, NJ. He was 76. King was born Benjamin Earl Nelson on Sept. 28, 1938, in Henderson, NC and grew up in Harlem, where his father had moved the family when he was a child. He was working in his father's Harlem luncheonette in 1956 when a local impresario, Lover Patterson, overheard him singing to himself and persuaded him to join a group he managed, the Five Crowns. Lightning struck in 1958 when the group, then known as the Crowns, performed at the legendary Apollo Theater on a bill with the original Drifters and attracted the attention of the group's manager, George Treadwell, who also owned the Drifters name. He later fired the Drifters en masse and replaced them with King and three of his fellow singers.
This is the song he will always be remembered for...
