Clydie King obit

Clydie King, Unsung Backup Singer for Ray Charles and Bob Dylan, Dead at 75

“She was my ultimate singing partner,” says Dylan. “No one ever came close. We were two soulmates 

She was not on the list.

Clydie King, who provided backing vocals on hundreds of rock songs, including Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" and the Rolling Stones' "Tumbling Dice," died on Jan. 7. She was 75.

“She was my ultimate singing partner,” Bob Dylan, who sang with King during his born-again period, told Rolling Stone. “No one ever came close. We were two soulmates.”

Born in Dallas on Aug. 21, 1943, King, as with many African-American singers, learned how to sing in her church choir. Her family moved to Los Angeles, where, at the age of 13, she began her recording career fronting Little Clydie & the Teens. Over the next decade, she regularly put out singles under her own name and also spent three years as one of Ray Charles' Raelettes.

After she left the road to raise a family, she found steady employment as a session vocalist. Often working with such notables as Venetta Fields, Sherlie Matthews and her friend and former Raelette Merry Clayton, King was a regular presence on records throughout the '70s, including classics by Elton John (Caribou), Linda Ronstadt (Heart Like a Wheel) and Steely Dan (Can't Buy a Thrill).

As with Clayton, King's track record led to further solo opportunities in the '70s, but they failed to make her a star.

King returned to the road with Dylan in the '80s, often stepping into the spotlight to duet with him. She's best heard on the 2017 mostly live Trouble No More Bootleg Series box set, and on the last two records of Dylan's gospel trilogy, Saved and Shot of Love.

 King provided backing vocals for Humble Pie, which had great success in the United States, and she went on to become an in-demand session singer, worked with Venetta Fields and Sherlie Matthews and recorded with B.B. King, The Rolling Stones, Steely Dan, Barbra Streisand, Bob Dylan, Linda Ronstadt, Joe Cocker, Dickey Betts, Joe Walsh, and many others. She was a member of The Blackberries with Fields and Matthews and sang on Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour, which became a feature film. She sang background for Ray Charles in The Raelettes from 1965 to 1968. In 1971, she was featured on the Beaver and Krause album Gandarva. She sang the lead vocal on the gospel-inflected "Walkin' By the River." Ray Brown played bass on the cut. Along with Merry Clayton, she sang the background vocals on Lynyrd Skynyrd's seminal hit "Sweet Home Alabama".

King was married two, or three times. Her first husband was Robin Hale, with whom she had three sons: Christopher, Randy, and Magge Hale. Her second husband was Tony Collins, with whom she had a daughter, Delores Collins.

 

Actress

Bob Dylan in Bob Dylan: Sweetheart Like You (1983)

Bob Dylan: Sweetheart Like You

5.8

Music Video

Clydie King

1983

 

Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson in A Star Is Born (1976)

A Star Is Born

6.1

The Oreos

1976

 

Music Department

Bob Dylan, Ellen Kuras, Jennifer Lebeau, and Damian Rodriguez in Trouble No More (2017)

Trouble No More

6.7

choir

2017