![]() The singer and the jazz guitarist clicked. The group’s long and sometimes turbulent career is recounted in Little Anthony: My Journey, My Destiny, an as-told-to memoir assembled by the singer and author Arlene Krieger, available now from Mascot Books.Īnthony also recently celebrated his signing to Nashville’s Reviver Records by releasing “Electric Together,” a funky-strut jam with guitarist/singer George Benson. On that single and subsequent hits that included “Goin’ Out Of My Head,” “Hurt So Bad,” “Take Me Back” and “Better Use Your Head,” they combined sophisticated arrangements and raw, emotional lead vocals into a formula for sure-fire success in the r&b field. That lyric was the first line from “Tears On My Pillow,” the song that launched Little Anthony & The Imperials. Little Anthony, closes his eyes and sings with clipped articulation in that instantly recognizable high tenor, “You don’t remember me, but I remember you.” Then he leans back, smiling broadly. They’d struggled through four or five takes but hadn’t quite hit the bull’s-eye.ĭuring a recent interview in Nashville, the singer recalled the scene: “George Gouldner, who was the president of End Records, said, ‘Anthony’-he was talking to me from the booth-‘why don’t you sing like you talk?’ And then he said, ‘Who’s your favorite singer?’ I said, ‘Well, I love Nat Cole.’ George said, ‘The way Nat Cole sings, the way he enunciates everything perfectly? I want you to try that.’ So I thought for a second and said, ‘OK.’”Īt this point in the interview, Jerome Anthony Gourdine, a.k.a. (Photo: Courtesy Reviver Records)įifty-seven years ago, Little Anthony and his group were in a New York studio, trying to cut their first single. He collaborated with Arlene Krieger on a new memoir. ![]() Little Anthony (and his band, The Imperials) was inducted into the Rock and roll Hall of Fame in 2009.
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