"Clyde McPhatter possessed a unique vocal instrument, a lively high tenor that captured the promise and fervor of the teenage Fifties. McPhatter was one of the first singers to cross over from the church to the pop and R&B charts. He was a Baptist minister’s son who was born in North Carolina and spent his teen years up north, in New Jersey and New York. He made the crossing from sacred to secular at age 18, when he was invited to join singer Billy Ward’s vocal group, the Dominoes, after turning heads with his performance of Lonnie Johnson’s “Tomorrow Night” in an amateur show at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre. McPhatter was initially billed as “Clyde Ward,” and it was claimed that he was Billy’s brother. McPhatter’s radiant, gospel-trained tenor exploded onto the R&B scene in the early Fifties on “Do Something for Me,” “Have Mercy Baby,” “The Bells” and other of the Dominoes’ dozen R&B hits. On “Have Mercy Baby,” which topped the R&B charts for ten weeks in 1952, McPhatter worked himself to the brink of tears. By recasting gospel’s fervid emotionality - a style known as “sanctified” singing - in a rhythm & blues setting, he presaged what would come to be known as soul music." Thank you Mr. McPhatter for all of your contributions and inspiration! Please click the link below and learn more about Clyde McPhatter. :-) http://rockhall.com/inductees/clyde-mcphatter/bio/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pExhO41akq0
“Anything Clyde sings is a prayer,” Aaron Neville told Goldmine’s Bruce Sylvester. “When I was growing up, I don’t care what else was going on in the world - Jim Crow, all the other stuff - you could put on Clyde McPhatter and it would all disappear.”
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