Fascinating article about Ben E. King, “Spanish Harlem” and “Stand By Me”, for those of you who, like me, were Rock and Roll Buffs.
"While all that was happening, two of the greatest pop singles ever made, “Spanish Harlem” and “Stand By Me,” were recorded in a New York City studio under the name Ben E. King, who died Thursday at age 76.
"The first song evoked the singular image of a red rose bursting through city grit and squalor, while the second pledged deliverance from loneliness and fear of the kind of night so dark and forbidding that “the moon is the only light we see.”
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