King, meanwhile, continued to sing lead on a succession of Drifters’ hits, written and composed by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, one of the songwriting teams at the famed New York Brill Building. I broke her heart, and made her cry / Now I’m alone, so all alone / What can I do, what can I do? Later in the song, there are some interesting flourishes of strings surrounding King’s questions. “There Goes My Baby,” is about a relationship gone bad, in which King as narrator offers some self-assessment of his role in its demise, now paying the price of loneliness. This song, and others to follow, were among the first rock and R&B songs of that era to use strings in the instrumentation. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart for two weeks in the summer of 1959. Released in April 1959, the song reached No, 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. King co-wrote and sang lead on the group’s first Atlantic hit - “There Goes My Baby.” King had a string of R&B hits with Atlantic Records. Record sleeve for later issue of “There Goes My Baby” single, depicting, from left: Charlie Thomas, Ben E. (Note: The Drifters’ considerable music history is complex, stretching over many years and numerous personnel, from 1955 when first formed by Clyde McPhatter, continuing through later years with an ever-changing roster of artists). King and the Crowns to replace them as the new Drifters. Treadwell then fired the remaining Drifters and hired Ben E. The Apollo appearance proved timely for the Crowns and Treadwell, who had just lost his lead singer from the Drifters to military service. The Crowns performed that year at the Apollo Theater on a bill with the original Drifters group and attracted the attention of George Treadwell, who then managed the Drifters and owned the name. In 1958, still using his birth name, King joined the Five Crowns doo-wop group. In high school he formed a doo-wop group that occasionally performed at the Apollo. In 1947, at the age of nine, he moved with his family to Harlem, New York. King was born in Henderson, North Carolina in 1938, then named Benjamin Earl Nelson. But first, a little history on King and his early success with The Drifters. More on the film and the song in a moment. and most European charts at that time, hitting No. A second round of popularity for the song came more than 25 years later, after King’s version backed the famous 1987 Rob Reiner film by that name, again rising into the Top Ten of the U.S. The song, written by King, along with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, came out of the Brill Building-era of song production, a time when some hits would be generated by songwriters and artists working together, producing some of the best R&B and pop music of those times. King recorded “Stand By Me” in 1961 after he had left the Drifters. The best known of these is “Stand By Me.” King as a solo artist – hit songs that lit up the music charts and became soulful classics that still resonate today. In the late 1950s and early 1960s there came a series of recordings by Ben E. King’s famous 1961 hit, “Stand By Me,” rose again on the 1987 pop charts after it was used in the soundtrack for the Rob Reiner film of that name.
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