|
|
 |
|
|
||
|
Wednesday August 27th 2008 |
a non-profit education organization | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
Wednesday August 27th 2008 |
a non-profit education organization | |
January 2
From Spartanburg, South Carolina He moved to Hartford, Connecticut to work in the aircraft industry in the early forties and while singing with a local band was spotted in 1944 by band leader Buddy Johnson who signed him as male vocalist. Despite his relative lack of record success, he was a mainstay of the cabaret and concert-hall circuits. Prysock sang on several of Johnson’s hits first on Decca (‘Jet My Love’, 1947 and ‘I Wonder Where Our Love Has Gone’, 1948) and Mercury (‘Because’, 1950). In 1952 Prysock went solo and signed with Decca. He had an immediate R&B hit, ‘I Didn’t Sleep a Wink Last Night’ (1952), but, his popularity as a live performer with black audiences notwithstanding, he was essentially a band and ballad not an R&B singer. Nonetheless, he recorded R&B classics like Roy Brown’s ‘Good Rocking Tonight’. In the sixties, Prysock joined Old Time records, where he had an R&B hit with a fine version of Ray Noble’s thirties ballad, ‘The Very Thought of You’ (1960) and a pop hit with ‘It’s Too Late Baby, It’s Too Late’ (1965) and Verve (‘A Working Man’s Prayer’, 1968). In the seventies, in the wake of successful reissues of his recordings, he had a surprise disco hit with ‘When Love Is New’ (Old Time, 1977) and in 1985, recorded his first new album, Arthur Prysock (Milestone) in almost a decade to critical and commercial approval. Heavily influenced by Billy Eckstine, Prysock’s rich baritone enabled him to sustain his career over five decades. Arthur Prysock died on June 7, 1997. Reference: All Media Guide 1168 Oak Valley Drive Ann Arbor, MI 48108 USA ACSAP Biographical Dictionary R. R. Bowker Co., Copyright 1980 ISBN 0-8351-1283-1
|
||
The African American Registry®, The African American Registry® Copyright 2005, 2006
|
||
