Ben E. King

If a song makes it to number 25 on the “top songs of the century” if must be pretty good, and that’s where Ben E. King’s Stand By Me ended up on the Recording Industry Association of America’s list for the 20th century. Ben E. King passed away this week and although I would have like to have played this sooner, I’ve been travelling and catching up with requests and other birthday dedications.

Stand By Me has been covered literally hundreds of times, but it first made it to the #1 position of the Billboard Top 100 R&B singles in 1960. On the release of the film of the same name in 1986, it re-entered the Billboard top 10, and made it to the #1 position in the UK charts in 1987.

There’s a lovely story about the recording of this song. Ben E. King had written it for The Drifters, but during a studio session for the recording of Spanish Harlem there was some time left over. The session producers, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, asked King if he had any other songs they could record. He played Stand By Me on the piano for them and they immediately called the session musicians back into the studio and ended up recording one of the most famous songs in history.

A few weeks ago, just before Ben E. King’s death, the song was inducted into the National Recording Registry by the US Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”. I hope my performance does this wonderful song justice.

If it’s your first time on the site, find out more about the 365 Songs project or see all of my May songs here.