Ben E. King

Ben E. King had the kind of voice that could make a street-corner love song sound like a hymn, and he first put it to work out front of the Drifters. Born in 1938, he took the lead on three of that group's biggest records, "There Goes My Baby", "This Magic Moment" and "Save the Last Dance for Me", the last of which gave the Drifters their only US number one.

Out on his own, with Atlantic and Atco behind him, he cut the first versions of "Spanish Harlem", "I (Who Have Nothing)" and "Don't Play That Song (You Lied)", songs other singers have been queuing up to cover ever since. But the one that follows him everywhere is "Stand by Me", which he sang and helped write: a top-10 hit in America in 1961, it climbed right back up there in 1986 when a film took its name and made it the theme song, then went to number one in Britain the following year. In between, "Supernatural Thing" put him in the top five in 1975.

The honours stacked up late. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted him as one of the Drifters in 1988, the Vocal Group Hall of Fame followed in 2000, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame handed him its Towering Song award in 2012. He died in 2015, still best known for "Stand by Me".

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.