“Ben E King Sings for Soulful Lovers.”
December 22, 2008 by admin
Filed under Featured Artists
Benjamin Earl Nelson commonly known as Ben E King is a famous American soul singer with genres in soul music and R&B. Ben E King has his occupation as singer, songwriter as well as record producer and has worked under several renowned labels.
Ben E King was born in the year 1938 in Henderson, North California. When Ben E King was nine years old, he and his family moved to New York City. There he joined a doo-wop group in the year 1958, called “The five Crowns”. Soon after some time, the manager of the group “The Drifters” fired all its members and replaced them with the members of “The five Crowns”. The band gave its first hit namely “There goes my baby”, which was co written by Ben E King. He also gave a song, in which he was the lead vocalist, named “Save the last dance for me”. This song was written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman. Along with this song, there were other tracks also in which Ben E King was the lead singer namely “Dance with me”, “I count the years”, “The magic moment” and “Lonely Winds”.
Overall, Ben E King recorded almost ten songs with “The Drifters” and one non single called “Temptation”.
In the year 1960, Ben E King failed to get a salary increase, so for this reason he left the band “The Drifters”. This enabled Ben E King to form a solo career and change his name from Benjamin Earl Nelson to Ben E King. With the label “Atlantic Records” he released his first ever solo hit ballad “Spanish Harlem”. It was a smashing hit, peaking at fifty seventh on U.S charts and thirtieth on the U.K charts. Subsequently after this mega hit, Ben E King recorded “Stand by me”, which ranked fourth on the charts of UK. “Stand by me” was written by Ben E King, Jerry Leiber as well as Mike Stroller and also voted for one of the songs of the century by Recording Industry Association of America. In “The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll”, three songs of Ben E King were named that is “There Goes my baby”, “Spanish Harlem” and “Stand by me”.
Moreover, these songs were honored by Grammy Hall of Fame Awards including one more song namely “save the last dance for me”.
He released a number of albums like “Ben E. King Sings for Soulful Lovers”, “Don’t Play That Song”, “Young boy blues”, “Seven Letters”, “Rough edges”, “Supernatural Things”, “I had a love”, “Rhapsody”, “Let me love in your life”, “Street tough”, “Music trance”, “What’s important to me”, “Shade of Blue”, “I have songs in my pocket”, “The very Best of Ben E King”, “Eleven Best”, “Person to Person”, “Soul masters”, “I have been around” and “Love is gonna get you” to name a few. Apart form this, he recorded many hit singles like “There Goes My Baby”, “Oh my Love”, “Dance With Me”, “This Magic Moment”, “Lonely Winds”, “Save The Last Dance For Me”, “Nobody but me”, “I Count the Tears”, “Brace Yourself”, “ Show Me the Way”, “A Help Each Other”, “Spanish Harlem”, “Stand by Me”, “Amor”, “Young Boy Blues”, “Here Comes the Night”, “Ecstasy”, “Don’t Play That Song (You Lied)”, “Too Bad”, “I’m Standing By”, “Tell Daddy”, “Sometimes I Wonder” “How Can I Forget”, “You Made the Difference in My Life”, “Stand By Me”, “You Still Move Me” and “4th of July” to name few.
Ben E King gave a numerous Billboard Hot 100 and pop hits that rocked the people and is still making a lot of people jive.
TJ Grooves
Rare Soul Grooves & Soul Music TV
Another of my musical heroes - this man has a heart of gold. 50 years in the entertainment business this year and not soured by it one little bit. Five number one’s and one of the most loved soul songs ever - Stand by Me. Fantastic.
Ben E. King was interviewed in 1993 and he said “If there’s anything about the business that I love and that I’m extremely happy about, is that my career started at that time and that I met some of the greatest entertainers at that time and some are still here. We were doing things with a hundred per cent feeling. It wasn’t programmed. It wasn’t asked for. It wasn’t structured. It was just there. It was very raw. I don’t think the industry would allow that to happen again. The industry now wants to be in charge of everything. At that time, we were in charge. We didn’t ask. We just did. We just did what was in our heart. I think the proof in the pudding is that all the stuff that was done, whether it be rock, jazz, blues, R&B, it doesn’t matter, all of the things that were done in that era are still alive today. That’s because the artist was in charge.” Nuff said.
I don’t know whether the song Stand By Me influenced the film or was just a handy title and great theme song, but either way it was a match made in heaven as both managed to convey that sense of nostalgia for days gone by, which may be seen through rose-tinted spectacles but nonetheless are revered and appreciated.
Just like the songs and spirit of Bill Withers, Ben E. King wrote songs that told of good honest folk trying to live well by one another. I think this is the reason for their appeal today, as we all wish that we could trust our neighbours and community, our boss or our colleagues, our classmates or even the people we meet on the internet.
I love singing Stand by Me at karaoke - If the sky that we look upon
Should tumble and fall
And the mountains should crumble to the sea
I won’t cry, I won’t cry, no I won’t shed a tear
Just as long as you stand, stand by me….
I love the John Lennon version too!
His big hit I Who Have Nothing was covered many times, notably by John Lennon, Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, Sylvester James, U2, Bruce Springsteen, and most recently by American Idol contestant Jordin Sparks, on March 20, 2007 and May 15, 2007. Now that classifies him as a legend.
He has an unequalled soul voice, but he is one of the forgotten stars, even though his songs have been covered by Aretha Franklin et al. He could also switch between soul, R&B, and country.