Adam Wade born 17 March 1935

 

 

Adam Wade (born Patrick Henry Wade, March 17, 1935) is an American singer, drummer and television actor. He is noted for his stint as the host of the CBS game show Musical Chairs, which made him the first African-American game show host.

 

Wade worked for a time as a lab assistant with Dr. Jonas Salk on the polio research team. He wanted to pursue a recording career, so he moved to New York in 1960 and tasted success instantly. He signed with CoEd Records and sang at the city's most prestigious club, the Copacabana, within six months of setting foot in the Big Apple. Wade scored a modicum of recording success in 1960 with "Ruby" and "I Can't Help It." He fared in 1961 with three Top Ten singles: "Take Good Care of Her," "The Writing on the Wall" and "As if I Didn't Know." "Take Good Care of Her" also reached #38 in the UK Singles Chart in June 1961.

 

 

 

 

Comparisons to Johnny Mathis hurt more than helped Wade, however; the two were vocally similar, and like Mathis, Wade was eye candy for the ladies. After two albums in 1960 and 1961 he left CoEd to replace Johnny Mathis (who else?) at Epic Records. The move all but killed his recording career. He only charted once at Epic with "Crying in the Chapel," which reached number 88.

 

His three Epic albums from 1962 and 1963 and subsequent efforts were not very successful and by 1969 Wade dropped recording for acting. He found work doing voice-overs, including Sweet Lou Dunbar and Gismo Man on The Harlem Globetrotters Show, and started acting with roles in Wanderlove (1970) and Shaft (1971), followed by roles as Benjy in Comeback Charleston Blues (1972), Gordon's War (1973) playing Hustler, and Crazy Joe in Phantom of the Paradise and Claudine, both released in 1974.

 

In 1976 he became the first African-American to host a national television talk show -- Musical Chairs. Rejuvenated again, Wade resurrected his recording career somewhat on Kirshner Records in 1978; this time he went for a funkier sound; the Mathis imitation was history. On Kirshner he recorded "Alexander's Soul Time Band," and others.

 

In 1978 he played in an all-black cast of Guys and Dolls in Las Vegas for six months and hosted the talk show Mid-Morning LA. He returned to acting in 1982 via Kiss Me Goodbye where he played Roscoe. He also appeared in several of the so-called blaxploitation movies, including Gordon's War.  He can also be seen quite frequently on national television as a co-pitchman in a television commercial for the Colonial Penn Life Insurance Company.

 

He took time out to go back to school (after forty years) and earned his BA and Master's degrees at Lehman College and Brooklyn College. He has been a speech and theater adjunct at LIU and Bloomfield College for some time and appears frequently on the L.A.-area stage. Formerly married to Kay Wade, with whom he had three children, Adam is currently wed to entertainer Jeree Wade. His latest theatrical appearance was with the 2008 touring company of the play The Color Purple.

 

Wade and his wife have a music production firm, 'Songbird' whose headquarters are in New Jersey.They perform together on cruise ships and in concerts forums as well as produce shows. (Info edited mainly from Wikipedia & AMG)