Bobby Hendricks born 23 February 1938

Bobby Hendricks (born February 22, 1938, Columbus, Ohio) is an American R&B singer who charted two hits in the late 1950s.

Like many artists, he started singing with his church choir. At age 16, he joined his first group, the Crowns, based in Columbus. Hendricks was also a member of The Swallows & The Marquis in 1956, and The Flyers in 1957.

His big step to stardom came as a member of the by-then-disintegrating original Drifters in 1958, with whom he toured at the Apollo Theatre and recorded “Drip Drop”, “Moonlight Bay”, and “Suddenly There’s a Valley” before he left the group to go solo the same year.

 

Hendricks used his Atco/Atlantic/Drifters connections many times over the next few years. As a solo act he scored a massive hit backed by the Coasters, label mates at Atco in 1958, with the bouncy “Itchy Twitchy Feeling” for Juggy Murray’s Sue label, for whom he eventually cut a further seven 45s.

The last of these became his second hit "Psycho" [Sue 732] in 1960. It was co-written by ex-Drifter Clyde McPhatter, and features a "Name Game"-like babbling give-and-take with "psychiatrist" Dr. Jive (Tommy Smalls), a New York deejay. (Incidentally, this was years before the Shirley Ellis record, and may have been an influence on that hit.) It hit the U.S. charts, reaching #5 on the Black Singles chart and #25 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1958, but he was unable to secure a consistent profile.

It was clear his beautifully modulated tone and fine sense of dynamics made him a class A vocalist so it's a shame, but understandable that his 45s for Sue and Mercury were so “pop” in their arrangements that they were more MOR music than anything else.

From 1964, off and on, Bobby Hendricks worked as lead singer with Bill Pinkney's Original Drifters where his subsequent path was obscured by the myriad of changes affecting the act’s turbulent history. 
 

In 1977, he moved to Los Angeles to establish his own vocal group, Bobby Hendricks Drifters. Since then, he has toured the country, performing in nearly every state, including a six-month engagement in Las Vegas. One of the recent highlights of his career was a performance with the Spokane Jazz Orchestra. Bobby has also performed internationally in Aruba, Austria, Canada, China, England, Ireland, Jamaica, and Singapore.
 

On April 13, 2001, Bobby was inducted into the Doo Wopp Hall of Fame of America at Symphony Hall in Boston. That same year, Bobby reunited with Bill Pinkney’s Original Drifters to perform on PBS’s Doo Wop 51, and again in 2007 for PBS’s Doo Wop Love Songs. Both performances were televised nationally.

Bobby now resides in Santa Clarita, California with his wife Ruth, and continues to tour the world, delighting audiences young and old with the timeless sounds of Doo-Wop.
 

(Info edited from Wikipedia, AMG, sirshambling.com & the bobbyhendricks.com)

 Here's Money Honey by Bobby Hendricks with the Roomates, Hemsby 50, May 2013.