Freda Payne

The multi-talented Freda Payne is best known for her singing career, yet she has also performed in musicals and acted in movies over the years, and briefly was the host of her own TV talk show. Born Freda Charcilia Payne on September 19, 1945, in Detroit, MI, Payne developed an appreciation of music at an early age (due to such sultry jazz singers as Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and Billie Holiday). Payne's own musical career blossomed soon after, as she began early singing radio commercial jingles, which brought the young vocalist to the attention of several music-biz heavyweights. Berry Gordy, Jr. attempted to sign Payne to his then-burgeoning record company, Motown, while Duke Ellington employed Payne as the featured singer with his renowned orchestra for two nights in Pittsburgh, resulting in Ellington offering the teenager a ten-year contract. But in both cases, Payne's mother turned them down. During the early to mid-'60s, Payne established herself as a fine jazz vocalist, touring the country with both Quincy Jones and Bill Cosby, and issuing a jazz/big band-based album in 1963, After the Lights Go Down Low and Much More!. In addition to a sophomore effort surfacing three years later, How Do You Say I Don't Love You Anymore, Payne enjoyed further exposure via appearances on such TV shows as Johnny Carson, David Frost, and Merv Griffin. But it wasn't until Payne signed on to the Invictus label in 1969 (headed by longtime friends/former Motown songwriters/producers Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Brian Holland) and issued the fine album Band of Gold that she scored her breakthrough hit single, the album's title track, which peaked at number three in the U.S. and topped the chart in the U.K. in 1970. Although Payne never enjoyed another hit as substantial as...