Willie Winfield obit

WILLIE WINFIELD DIES

 

He was not on the list.

WILLIE WINFIELD, lead singer with veteran doo-wop group, the Harptones, died on Tuesday, 27th July, Few details are currently available save that Winfield was 92 and had been performing with the group as recently as April 2019.

Winfield was a founder member of the Harptones who first got together in New York in 1953. Though they were superb vocals stylists they never had a top 40 pop hit  though one of their best songs, ‘Life Is But A Dream’ became something of a vocal group standard. Temptations’ fans will know and love their version on their ‘For Lovers Only’ album while movie buffs will know that the Harptones original was featured on the ‘Goodfellas’ soundtrack.

Winfield worked with the Harptones for 66 years and despite many offers he refused to go solo. Known for his modesty, in a 2019 interview he said: “The Harptones are the reason I kept singing. The original group all had the same idea. We did everything together; we went out after shows. We still do that now. Anywhere we appear, the original members who are deceased are with me. I still hear their voices.”

David Hinkley wrote - When the Harptones finally got up the nerve to try the Apollo Theater’s notoriously tough Amateur Night in November of 1953, lead singer Willie Winfield was so nervous he had to be pushed on the stage.

“They’d be telling me jokes to loosen me up enough to go out there,” Winfield recalled a couple of years ago. “Stage fright is very tough to overcome.”

Winfield didn’t say which of the other Harptones pushed him — Nicky Clark, William Dempsey, Dicey Galloway, Raoul Cita or Billy Brown — but that fellow has a permanent special place in the hearts of everyone who loves 1950s-style rhythm and blues vocal group harmony music.

Over a career that lasted up to a final performance in April of 2019, Willie Winfield ascended to the Mount Rushmore of beloved vocal group harmony singers. He was carved in stone there when he died Tuesday evening of a heart attack, a month shy of his 92nd birthday.

He led the Harptones on a dozen classics, starting with “Sunday Kind of Love” and running through the likes of “My Memories Of You,” “Cry Like I Cried,” “The Masquerade Is Over,” “Forever Mine,” “Three Wishes,” “What Is Your Decision” and “Life Is But a Dream.”

While the Harptones could whip up a crowd with their energetic and acrobatic stage show — several of their uptempo numbers are captured in the 1956 film “Rockin’ The Blues” —to most fans over the years they were defined by their love ballads and heartbreak songs.

They cut so many classics that one of their most transcendent, “Loving a Girl Like You,” wasn’t even released when they recorded it in 1953. Only eight years later, after collector Val Shively almost accidentally ran across the demo, did fans hear it and wonder why in the world it had sat around collecting dust. (“I went to school / Passed all my tests / And made it through / Along with the rest / But I was not told about / Loving a girl like you.”)

Actually, in a way it sort of did come out earlier. The Harptones had sung it enough in their live shows that it became a street-corner favorite around New York, known by the shorthand title “School Girl.” In 1956 Old Town Records had Ruth McFadden cut a gender-flipped version — same song, same arrangement — as “School Boy.”

 

The Harptones provided backing vocals.

In any case, vocal group fans can drop a needle pretty much anywhere on any Harptones record and get lost in whatever plays.

 

“I had no thought of a singing career continuing,” said Winfield. “None at all. Then after ‘Sunday Kind of Love’ came out, our road manager said, ‘You’ll be singing that song for the rest of your life.’ “

He was right. Winfield’s final performance included “Sunday Kind of Love,” which drew the standing ovation that spoke for everyone who had heard him for the previous 66 years.

In a field with a lot of egos, Winfield stood out for a modest, unassuming demeanor. For starters, he never had any desire to ditch the group and go solo.

“The Harptones are the reason I kept singing,” he said, and that applied through numerous personnel changes over the years. “The original group all had the same idea. We did everything together, we went out after shows. We still do that now.

“Anywhere we appear, the original members who are deceased are with me. I still hear their voices.”

And okay, he added, some of those voices are telling jokes.

“In the early days, the other guys lived in Harlem and I lived in Brooklyn,” he said. “One night I overslept and I got to the theater after they had already started. Luckily I had a suit similar to theirs, but my pajamas were showing out of the bottom of my pants. They kidded me a lot about that.”

Then there was the moment with “My Memories Of You.”

“When we sang it on stage, I’d always hit it a key higher,” said Winfield. “So one night the other guys brought out water guns and when I did it, they shot me. The audience thought it was funny. I was never so scared in my life.”