Seneca was born Joel McGhee Jr. in Cleveland, Ohio. ;Music Before his acting career, he belonged to the
R&B singing group The Three Riffs, which was active from the late 1940s to the mid 1970s, and performed at upscale
supper clubs in New York City. He was also a songwriter and had big hits with "
Talk to Me", sung by
Little Willie John, and "
Break It to Me Gently," which was a smash hit by
Brenda Lee in 1962 and by
Juice Newton in 1982. ;Theatre In the early 1970s, Seneca transitioned into acting, beginning in regional theatre at the
Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference in
Waterford, Connecticut. That same year, Seneca appeared in
Spike Lee's
School Daze as Mission College President McPherson. That same year, He appeared in
Michael Jackson's music video "
The Way You Make Me Feel." On
The Equalizer he played Fossil Williams, a mission worker looking after the spiritual and physical well-being of the down-and-out homeless of
Skid row in
The Bowery neighborhood of New York City in the episode, "
17 Zebra". He played Eddie Haynes on
Matlock in "The Blues Singer" (1989). Seneca played "Blind Otis Lemon" (based on
Muddy Waters), a homeless blues legend who gets one last chance to sing and play in a club the night before an operation that may leave him deaf in the
Doogie Howser, M.D. episode "
Doogie Sings the Blues" (1990). He later played murder witness Lionel Jackson in the
Law & Order episode "
Profile" (1993). He also appeared in several television films, including
Wilma (1977),
The House of Dies Drear (1984),
A Gathering of Old Men (1987), and
The Vernon Johns Story (1994). Seneca's final screen role was portraying Whitechaple in the British television film
The Longest Memory (1997) which he completed just two weeks prior to his death. ==Death==