STAND BY ME
EARL GRANT
SONGWRITERS: BEN E. KING & ELMO GLICK
COUNTRY: U. S. A.
ALBUM: FEVER
LABEL: DECCA RECORDS
GENRE: JAZZ
YEAR: 1966
Earl Grant(January 20, 1931 – June 10, 1970)
was an American pianist, organist, and
vocalist popular in the 1950s and 1960s.
Grant was born in Idabel, Oklahoma. Though he would be known later
for his keyboards and vocals, Grant also played trumpet and drums. Grant
attended four music schools, eventually becoming a music teacher. He
augmented his income by performing in clubs during his army service, throughout which he was stationed in Fort Bliss, Texas. Grant
signed with Decca Records in 1957 and his first single "The End" reached number 7 on
the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The álbum
Ebb Tide (And Other Instrumental Favorites) sold over one million copies,
gaining gold disc status. He recorded six more singles that made the charts, including "Swingin'
Gently" (from Beyond the Reef), and six additional albums (on the
Decca label) through 1968. He also recorded the album Yes Sirree! and the instrumental album Trade
Winds, single-tracked on the Hammond organ and piano, featuring the love theme from the film El Cid and Chaplin's "Eternally".
This album featured
some realistic-sounding "tropical bird calls" produced by his
electric organ. "House of Bamboo" was another big-selling single. Grant
recorded 30 albums for Decca, mostly on the Brunswick label, a subsidiary of
Decca.
Several of his albums featured tenor
saxophonist Plas Johnson.
Grant also made a few appearances in films
and on television, including Tender Is the
Night (1962), Juke Box Rhythm (1959), It Takes a
Thief(1969) and The Ed
Sullivan Show(1960).
Grant sang the title theme for the 1959 film Imitation of
Life.
He died instantly in a car accident in Lordsburg,
New Mexico, at the age of 39 when the car
he was driving ran off Interstate 10. He was
driving from Los Angeles to an intended destination in Juarez, Mexico, for an
appearance at the La Fiesta nightclub. His cousin's 17-year-old son, Roosevelt
Woods III, was also killed in the accident.
On June 25, 2019, The New York
Times Magazine listed Earl Grant among hundreds of
artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008
Universal fire.
Postagens
