8
Born Benjamin Earl Nelson on
September 28, 1938 in Henderson,
North Carolina, the singer moved to
New York City at age nine. In 1957,
he joined The Five Crowns, a
veteran Harlem doo-wop quintet.
“The manager, whose name was
Lover Patterson, was looking for a
baritone singer to join them,
because one of them left. And my
father had a restaurant more or less
right across the street from where
he lived,”
says King.
“He came over,
I guess, looking for someone to join
the group.”
Ben fit the bill.
“About
the time that I wasn’t busy in the
restaurant, they kind of brought ‘em
in. We went in the back area a little
bit to see what I could do,”
he says.
“And I harmonized with the group.”
The new Crowns cut
Kiss And Make
Up
for tiny R n B Records in ’58.
Their big break came when The
Crowns were at the bottom of an
Apollo card. “
I know Ray Charles was
top of the bill,”
says King, born
September 28, 1938 in Henderson,
North Carolina.
“During that week,
I noticed that there was a whole lot
of gossip going around about the
management, and about the
Drifters performing, and coming
in late to do the shows, and all
that. There were rumors that
they were going to break up, and
whatever. So it ended up (Drifters
manager George Treadwell) had
approached the group to ask us,
would we be interested in
becoming the new Drifters?”
They
were, and they did.
The new Drifters launched a
brand-new R&B genre with their
violin-enriched, Latin-tempoed
