Clydie King, Top-Tier Backup Singer, Is Dead at 75 – The New York Times

Clydie King and Bob Dylan in “Trouble No More,” a 2017 film featuring footage from Mr. Dylan’s 1980 tour. “She was my ultimate singing partner,” Mr. Dylan said in a statement, “No one ever came close.”

 
By Giovanni Russonello
 
Clydie King and Bob Dylan in “Trouble No More,” a 2017 film featuring footage from Mr. Dylan’s 1980 tour. “She was my ultimate singing partner,” Mr. Dylan said in a statement, “No one ever came close.”
Clydie King, whose peppery but plain-spoken backing vocals helped define hits like the Rolling Stones’ “Tumbling Dice,” Linda Ronstadt’s “You’re No Good” and — despite her reservations about it — Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama,” died on Jan. 7 in Monrovia, Calif. She was 75.
Tony Collins, her former husband, said her death, at Monrovia Memorial Hospital, was caused by complications of a blood infection that she had acquired during dialysis treatment.
Ms. King joined Bob Dylan’s band in 1980, when he was in the midst of his Christian-rock phase, beginning a long association with him. Mr. Dylan had recently converted to evangelical Christianity, and the two bonded over music and faith. She became a central part of his ensemble, and they started a romantic relationship that lasted through the mid-’80s.
In a statement to the news media on the occasion of Ms. King’s death, Mr. Dylan said: “She was my ultimate singing partner. No one ever came close. We were two soul mates.”
Ms. King recorded dozens of songs under her own name in the 1960s, and in the next decade she released a smattering of solo albums on independent labels. But she never scored a breakthrough hit. Instead, by the mid-’70s she had established herself as a first-call backing vocalist, working with B. B. King, Joe Cocker, Odetta, Steely Dan and many others.
Starting in 1966 she spent three years as a core member of Ray Charles’s famed backing vocal troupe, the Raelettes. Another member was Merry Clayton, who also went on to become a top-tier background singer and collaborated frequently with Ms. King over the coming decade.
In the early 1970s, Ms. King was a leader of the Blackberries, a soul- and disco-oriented group that recorded for Motown’s West Coast affiliate, Mowest. She released three solo albums for small labels in the ’70s: “Direct Me,” a sparky soul-funk effort, in 1971; “Brown Sugar,” in 1973; and “Rushing to Meet You,” with a disco bent, in 1976.
She stepped away from performing in the mid-’80s for health reasons, and never made a full comeback.
Ms. King is survived by a sister, Enober Green; a brother, Willie King; two sons, Christopher and Randy Hale, from her marriage to Robin Hale; and a number of grandchildren. A third son from that marriage, Magge Hale, died before her, as did a daughter, Delores Collins, from her marriage to Mr. Collins. Both marriages ended in divorce.
Ms. King in about 1970. By the mid-’70s she had established herself as a first-call backing vocalist, working with B.B. King, Joe Cocker, Odetta, Steely Dan and many others.CreditMichael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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Ms. King in about 1970. By the mid-’70s she had established herself as a first-call backing vocalist, working with B.B. King, Joe Cocker, Odetta, Steely Dan and many others.CreditMichael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Clydie Mae King was born in Dallas on Aug. 21, 1943. Her mother died when she was 2 years old, and she was raised primarily by her older sister, Lula Mae Crittendon.
Ms. King sang in her church choir as a child, and she stood out early. At age 8, she appeared on a national television show hosted by Art Linkletter.
Soon after, her family moved to Los Angeles, where Ms. King started her recording career at 13, fronting a doo-wop group called Little Clydie and the Teens. Over the succeeding years she recorded frequently as a leader, mostly in a classic doo-wop or soul style, for the Specialty, Philips, Minit and Imperial labels.
One day in June 1973, at a time when she was working constantly as a background vocalist, she called Ms. Clayton and asked her to participate in the recording of “Sweet Home Alabama.” Ms. Clayton initially resisted, offended by the song’s lyrics. The irony was not lost on Ms. King, either, that two black women might contribute to a song seen by many as celebrating the conservative backlash against civil rights. But she persuaded Ms. Clayton to do the session anyway, and together their boisterous voices helped define what became a smash hit.
“We really wanted nothing to do with any type of Alabama at that time in our lives,” Ms. Clayton recalled in an interview shortly after the release in 2013 of “20 Feet From Stardom,” Morgan Neville’s Oscar-winning documentary about backup singers. (That film helped bring Ms. Clayton’s career out of the shadows, but it did not feature Ms. King.)
“That was a part of our protest, you know?” Ms. Clayton told Rolling Stone. “We couldn’t stand on the front lines, but we could certainly sing ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ with all of our hearts and souls — a song that will live in infamy.”
Ms. King first worked with Mr. Dylan on the sessions for “Saved” (1980), his second of three religious albums. She is also heard with him on “Shot of Love” (1981), his final Christian album; “Infidels” (1983); and the 2018 archival collection “The Bootleg Series Vol. 13: Trouble No More 1979–1981.”
Ms. King and Mr. Dylan made a wealth of recordings as a duet, which have yet to be released. “There must be at least an album’s worth. We would often go into the studios and do little things,” Ms. King said in a 2007 interview with In the Basement, a British music magazine. “I don’t know why nothing was ever issued. I expect it had to do with record company politics.”
The 2017 concert film “Trouble No More,” centering on footage from Mr. Dylan’s 1980 tours, features Ms. King prominently. It closes with her and Mr. Dylan seated together at the piano, singing a tender duet on “Abraham, Martin and John.”
Alongside Ms. King, Mr. Dylan’s famously mercurial voice becomes clear and well pitched, and the two harmonize with ease. They appear to be playing to a largely empty arena, presumably during a sound check — but they seem unconcerned about who is or isn’t listening, lost as they are inside the music.
 

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