The Drifters performing at The Regal Theatre in 1960. - File
Yesterday marked the 82nd birth anniversary of one of the most important figures in the history of rhythm and blues (R&B) - Clyde McPhatter.
Possessing a velvety fluid tenor voice, he anchored two of the top vocal groups of the 1950s -The Dominos and The Drifters, before launching a successful solo career. McPhatter's contribution, both as a group singer and as a solo act, paved the way for the emergence of soul music, while influencing dozens of soul greats, including Jackie Wilson and Sam Cooke.
McPhatter actually began his career in 1950 as the soaring, high-tenor lead vocalist of a New York-based, all-black vocal quintet named The Dominos. In less than a year, the teenaged McPhatter, along with the group, had three major hits, Do Something For Me, I Am With Youand The Sixty Minute Man, a risque episode, which became one of the first R&B singles to cross over to the pop charts. Its bawdy concoction of blues and gospel, laced with suggestive lyrics, incited music lovers to sing along to the words:
"Look here girls, I'm telling you now
they call me loving Dan
I rock 'em roll 'em all night long
I'm a sixty minute man.
If you don't believe I'm all I say
come up and take my hand.
When I let you go, you'll cry 'Oh yea', he's a sixty minute man.
There'll be 15 minutes of kissing, 15 minutes of teasing,
15 minutes of squeezing
and 15 minutes of blowing my top.
then you'll holler 'please don't stop'."
The North Carolina-born McPhatter, however, saw his career taking a dramatic turn on an evening in early 1953, when he was approached backstage by the fledgling Atlantic Recording Company's boss, Ahmet Ertegun, while the group performed at the New York club, Birdland. Ertegun had just learnt that McPhatter had quit the group, and sought to capitalise on his departure by signing him to his record label. The deal was completed in minutes with Ertegun insisting that a group be formed for the recording sessions. It was a most unusual occurrence, perhaps the first and only instance in recording music history that a group was formed at the instigation of a record label chief.
McPhatter went about his task by recruiting his backing singers from the ranks of local-based gospel groups, including the Mount Lebanon Singers of which he was once a member. After a number of line-up changes and unreleased recordings, McPhatter settled with Gerhart and Andrew Thrasher, Willie Ferbee, Jimmy Oliver (guitarist), and himself. For all intents and purposes, the group that Ertegun requested was born, and tagged with the name 'Drifters', all this happening in 1953. The unusual title befuddled many, but the explanation was given that the members drifted in from other groups.
First Drifters hit
McPhatter's first recording session with the group, for the New York-based Atlantic Records in August of 1953, produced the million-selling smash, Money Honey, followed in 1954 by Such a Night, Lucille,Honey Love and the holiday classic, White Christmas, which became the group's first crossover pop entry. Drafted in late 1954 to the army base in Buffalo, McPhatter was allowed to rejoin the group on weekends, resulting in him landing his final hit with the group in 1955, the Ahmet Ertegun-penned, Whatcha Gonna Do, a proposition in rhythm and blues that became one of the real gems from the Drifters' catalogue. McPhatter had thus set in motion what would become the longest-running success story in pop-soul music history, and in the process, laid a solid foundation for R&B, pop and soul that would emerge in the following decade.
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