The Drifters In 1958, King (still using his birth name) joined a doo-wop group called the Five Crowns. King had a string of
R&B hits with the group on
Atlantic Records. He co-wrote and sang lead on the first Atlantic hit by the new version of the Drifters, "
There Goes My Baby" (1959). King sang lead on a succession of hits by the team of
Doc Pomus and
Mort Shuman, including "
Save the Last Dance for Me", "
This Magic Moment", and "
I Count the Tears". After a year of touring with the Drifters, contract disputes arose with Treadwell, in which King and his manager Lover Patterson demanded greater compensation. Treadwell refused, and King was only hired for studio recordings. On television, fellow Drifters member
Charlie Thomas usually
lip-synched the songs that King had recorded with the Drifters.
Solo career In May 1960, King left the Drifters, "Stand by Me", "There Goes My Baby", "Spanish Harlem", and "Save the Last Dance for Me" were all named in the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll; and each of those records has earned a
Grammy Hall of Fame Award. King's other well-known songs include "
Don't Play That Song (You Lied)", "
Amor", "
Seven Letters", "How Can I Forget", "I Swear by Stars Above" , "It Ain’t Fair", "
Young Boy Blues", "Its All Over", "River of Tears", "Ecstasy", "She’s gone Again", "
That's When It Hurts", and "On the Horizon". In the summer of 1963, King had a Top 30 hit with "
I (Who Have Nothing)", which reached the Top 10 on New York's radio station,
WMCA. King's records continued to place well on the
Billboard Hot 100 chart until the mid-1960s. British pop bands began to dominate the pop music scene, but King still continued to make R&B hits. Some of these hits include "What is Soul?", "Tears, Tears, Tears", and "
Till I Can't Take It Anymore". In 1975, King made a comeback on the
Billboard Hot 100 chart with the disco hit "
Supernatural Thing": number 5 on
Billboard Hot 100 and number 1 on the Billboard R&B chart. It was also nominated for a Grammy at the 18th Annual Grammy Awards in 1975 for "best R&B vocal performance, male". In 1977, King collaborated with
Average White Band in releasing the album
Benny & Us. The album spawned two top 40 R&B hits, "A Star in the Ghetto" and "Get It Up". King returned to the Drifters in late 1982 in the United Kingdom and sang with them until the group's break-up and reorganization in 1986. From 1983 until the band's break-up, the other members of this incarnation of the Drifters were Johnny Moore, Joe Blunt, and Clyde Brown. A 1986 re-issue of "Stand by Me" followed the song's use as the
theme song to the movie
Stand By Me and re-entered the
Billboard top ten after a 25-year absence. This reissue also topped the charts in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland for three weeks in February 1987. In 1990, King and
Bo Diddley, along with
Doug Lazy, recorded a revamped
hip hop version of
the Monotones' 1958 hit song "
Book of Love" for the
soundtrack of the movie
Book of Love. He also recorded a children's album,
I Have Songs In My Pocket, written and produced by children's music artist
Bobby Susser in 1998, which won the Early Childhood News Directors' Choice Award and Dr. Toy's/the Institute for Childhood Resources Award. King performed "Stand by Me" on the
Late Show with David Letterman in 2007.
Ahmet Ertegun said, "King is one of the greatest singers in the history of rock and roll and rhythm and blues." As both a member of the Drifters and a solo artist, King earned several number‑one hits, including There Goes My Baby, Save the Last Dance for Me, Stand By Me, Supernatural Thing, and the 1986 reissue of Stand By Me. Across the combined U.S. pop and R&B charts, he amassed 12 Top 10 singles and 28 Top 40 entries. King was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Drifters and later received a nomination for his solo work as well. , Massachusetts, on March 31, 2012 A re-recording of King's "
I (Who Have Nothing)" was selected for the
Sopranos Peppers and Eggs Soundtrack CD (2001). King was inducted into the
North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009. On March 27, 2012, the
Songwriters Hall of Fame announced that "Stand By Me" would receive its 2012 Towering Song Award and that King would be honored with the 2012 Towering Performance Award for his recording of the song. ==Later life==