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Clyde McPhatter was one of the most influential R&B singers of the '50s
and early '60s. In his own time, his name and voice loomed so much larger than
that of the group the Drifters, which he founded, that it took five years for
them to recover from his departure. McPhatter was idolized by Black audiences as
few singers before or since ever were, and for almost 15 years helped define
rhythm & blues and its transformation into soul. In a way, he was the most
improbable of R&B stars, a gentle high tenor who, superficially at least,
seemed more suited to the angelic strains of gospel music. And his name gave
some potential managers and agents pause -- what kind of R&B singer, forget
a star, was named Clyde? And Clyde McPhatter seemed like a backwoods burlesque
of a Black American name. But when he sang, the doubts and the laughter all
disappeared -- even on his live album from the Apollo Theater, recorded during
his declining years, when he describes physical lust in the hit "Ta Ta," he
makes it feel urgent and real, and utterly convincing.
McPhatter was born in Durham, NC, on November 15, 1932, the fourth of six
children of George and Beulah McPhatter. The family that was both musical and
religious, George McPhatter preached at the Mount Calvary Baptist Church where
Beulah McPhatter was the organist, and Clyde became a boy soprano in the church
choir. The family moved to New Jersey in 1945 and McPhatter formed his first
gospel group that year in high school. The McPhatters moved to New York City,
and Clyde McPhatter joined the Mount Lebanon Singers, who were one of the most
popular gospel groups on the East Coast, and sang with them in the second half
of the '40s. In late 1950, McPhatter made the jump to secular  music when he
joined Billy Ward, a former boxer-turned-singer in the Dominoes. The group,
usually known officially as Billy Ward & the Dominoes, signed with Syd
Nathan's King Records label, and at the end of 1950 cut "Sixty Minute Man." That
song went on to become the biggest R&B hit of 1951 and the first
identifiable rock & roll record (though that phrase had not yet been coined
for music) by a Black group to make the jump from the R&B to the pop charts.
McPhatter stayed with Billy Ward & the Dominoes for three years, racking up
a very respectable array of hits, including "Have Mercy Baby," "The Bells," "I'd
Be Satisfied," and "These Foolish Things Remind Me of You," and playing as many
engagements as they could handle. The problem for McPhatter was that Ward
dominated the group's image and its finances -- McPhatter's was the lead voice,
and the voice that everyone identified; Ward had his name on the front end of
the billing and collected all of the profits, while McPhatter, who was sometimes
referred to as "Clyde Ward" by unknowing admirers, wasn't earning enough to live
on from the meager salary that Ward paid him. Finally, in early 1953, McPhatter
quit.
Ahmet Ertegun, the president and co-founder of Atlantic Records, was a fan of
McPhatter's singing with the Dominoes and, on learning of his availability,
approached him with a contract offer -- to record his own group, if he could
organize it. Thus were born the Drifters, originally organized by McPhatter in
partnership with his manager George Treadwell. It was as the leader of the
Drifters that McPhatter's career momentum picked up considerably -- beginning
with "Money Honey," which became the biggest R&B hit of 1954, he saw a year
of notable chart activity and burgeoning popularity, around the singles "Such a
Night," "Honey Love," "White Christmas," and "Whatch Gonna Do." McPhatter
received his draft notice in 1954, but was lucky enough to be posted in America,
which allowed him to continue to record with the group. He had already made a
decision to leave the Drifters, however. He saw himself moving in a different
direction from the group, toward a solo sound that would meld pop, R&B, and
rock & roll all in one, and unlike a lot of other aspirants to that sort of
stardom, McPhatter had what it took to pull it off. His high tenor was equally
convincing on a slow ballad or a hard rock & roll number, and he saw no
reason that he couldn't do both types of song his own way. He couldn't have
known it at the time, but he was opening up a path that would later be followed
by the likes of Elvis Presley and Sam Cooke, among many others.
Upon his discharge in 1955, McPhatter embarked on his official solo career,
still recording for Atlantic Records. McPhatter first emerged in a duet with
Ruth Brown on "Love Has Joined Us Together," which made number 8 on the R&B
charts, and in August of that year he recorded "Seven Days," which became a
number 2 R&B hit in early 1956. This was the first of McPhatter's attempts
at a crossover record, complete with a softer pop orchestra and chorus behind
his singing, but it was undercut on the pop charts by a variety of white cover
versions, most notably by Dorothy Collins and the Crew Cuts. He fared better in
the spring of 1956 with "Treasure of Love," which was not only his first solo
R&B chart-topper, but also managed to make number 16 on the pop charts.
"Just to Hold My Hand" kept him in the Top 10 on the R&B charts and the Top
30 in pop in the spring of 1957, and "Long Lonely Nights" topped out the R&B
listings while just brushing the Top 50 for pop record compilers that summer.
McPhatter was a big enough star that he was essentially the focus of two LP
releases on Atlantic in the same year, unheard of for a Black artist in those
days, when R&B albums (apart from Elvis' first RCA long-players, which were
considered R&B) didn't sell in serious numbers. In 1956, Atlantic released
Clyde McPhatter & the Drifters and followed it up with Love Ballads soon
after -- the latter revealed his and the label's strategy, with a cover
depicting an audience of white teenage girls in tinted overlays, looking on
toward the camera excitedly and longingly. His goal, and the hope of his label,
was to follow the path opened previously by Nat "King" Cole had done starting
from jazz, and Eddy Arnold had done from country, and cross over to pop
audiences -- he had aspirations of rivalling Frank Sinatra and Perry Como.
McPhatter saw his biggest hit on Atlantic in 1958 with "A Lover's Question,"
co-authored by Brook Benton, which hit number 6 on the pop charts that fall
while topping the R&B listings. He had three more charting singles in 1959,
none of which broke the Top 10 in R&B, but saw another long-player released
to his credit, entitled simply Clyde.
He left Atlantic that year after one last hit, "Lovey Dovey," closing out his
career there with another Brook Benton song, "You Went Back on Your Word."
McPhatter's contract was up, and he jumped to M-G-M Records, which was offering
a large advance in its eagerness to grab hold of the R&B market. His
relationship there lasted but a year, through four singles, of which only "Let's
Try Again" matched his Atlantic hits, making the R&B Top 20. He also had
some minor pop hits in "I Told Myself a Lie" and "Think Me a Kiss" in 1960. The
early '60s were a tumultuous time for McPhatter, personally and musically. He
jumped to Mercury Records as the new decade began, and his career seemed to pick
up again with an R&B Top 10 single, "Ta Ta," which also made the pop charts.
"I Never Knew" also did well, and was followed by a Top 10 pop single in 1962
with "Lover Please," written by Billy Swan. Behind the scenes, however,
McPhatter was walking a tightrope of alcoholism and unreliability that was
expending all of the capital that he'd built up in the music community and the
Black community -- he was a big enough name to still rate bookings at the Apollo
Theater in Harlem, but hall managers and promoters, and his own backing bands,
never knew what to expect from him, even in terms of repertory between
rehearsals and showtime. Additionally, music was changing around him. McPhatter
had served as a musical model for a soul singers of two generations who followed
him onto the charts -- Ben E. King in the Drifters and solo, but also Jackie
Wilson and Smokey Robinson, and they were all producing hit records in
prodigious numbers between 1960 and 1965. Even his former group the Drifters,
now reconstructed with an entirely new lineup and with a new sound, were
enjoying massive radio play and record sales during this period around the
voices of King, Rudy Lewis, and Johnny Moore. Additionally, Sam Cooke, who was
of the same generation as McPhatter, and had made the same journey out of the
deep south to the big city, and the cross-over from gospel to R&B and pop,
was the dominant figure in soul music during the early '60s. All were good and
were also reliable and professional, and there was just no room for McPhatter,
who wasn't any of those things at the time.
Before leaving Mercury, McPhatter enjoyed slight success with "Deep in the
Heart of Harlem," a song that seemed to emulate the soft soul sound of the
Drifters of that era, and "Crying Won't Help You Now," and cut a good concert
album, Live at the Apollo, in 1964, which featured a cross-section of his hits
across his career dating back to the early '50s. He spent the next few years
recording for smaller labels such as Amy Records, unable to get a hit or keep
his performing career going. He must have appreciated the grim irony, that his
one-time Drifters stablemate, bass singer Bill Pinkney, was leading a group of
"Drifters" who sang McPhatter's repertory and had a viable concert career,
especially in England. And then, in a maneuver that anticipated the career
course of the latter day Drifters, McPhatter moved to England. McPhatter's
Dominoes and Drifters records hadn't appeared in the U.K. at the time of their
original release. In the early '60s, between the booming enthusiasm for American
R&B and the release of his current solo records, and the groundwork laid by
Pinkney in his performances, McPhatter achieved recognition there and found a
fresh audience. He found work in British clubs for a few years, until the same
personal problems caught up with him. He returned to America in the early '70s,
signing with Decca Records at the time and releasing an album, Welcome Home. It
failed to make any impact, and McPhatter himself denied having any audience or
fans left, which was not the case. (Even this writer -- as a neophyte R&B
listener in the late '60s with a lot to learn, coming from a middle-class white
neighborhood where Jimi Hendrix was the Black artist most often played, and in a
time when not a single one of the early Drifters' songs was available on an
album -- knew who Clyde McPhatter was, or who he had been.)
It was too late for McPhatter, professionally and personally, however. Years
of alcoholism and depression, and a failure to deal with his problems ended with
a fatal heart attack in New York in 1972. It took years for Atlantic, where he'd
been signed for what were probably the six most optimistic years of his career,
to begin to make his music available in the United States (though their British
division made some efforts overseas). In the CD era, in addition to its own best
of compilation Deep Sea Ball, the label has licensed different parts of his
legacy to Collectables and Sequel. There is no definitive compilation of his
music, or biography of this seminal R&B and soul star. ~ Bruce Eder, All
Music Guide
Written by Bruce Eder
Source:
http://music.yahoo.com/ar-270014-bio--Clyde-McPhatter
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more hits, McPhatter quit the group in 1953 because he made little money and gained
virtually no fame, in spite of his voice being the lead on most of the group's
songs. McPhatter then signed to Atlantic Records after forming a group, The Drifters. "Money Honey",
"Such a Night", "Honey Love", "White Christmas" and "Whatcha Gonna
Do" became huge hits.
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