Joe Simon

Joe Simon – born in Simmesport, Louisiana on September 7, 1936 – was a Grammy Award-winning R&B and soul singer, songwriter, and producer. He began singing in his father’s Baptist Church but did not pursue a professional career in music until his family moved to Richmond, California in the late 1950s. Influenced by singers like Sam Cooke and Arthur Prysock, he joined the Golden West Gospel Singers, who then went secular in 1959 and recorded under the name the Golden Tones. Joe Simon went solo and scored his first solo hit, “My Adorable One”, in 1964. Throughout the rest of the 1960s, he scored over 50 pop and R&B hits in the US, with 38 of those reaching the Top 40. Joe Simon’s most recognizable hit include three Number 1 R&B titles: “The Chokin’ Kind” (1969), “Power of Love” (1972), and “Get Down, Get Down (Get on the Floor)” (1975). Other hits included "Teenager's Prayer" (1966), “(You Keep Me) Hanging On” (1968), “Farther On Down the Road” (1970), “Drowning in the Sea of Love” (1971). His self-penned minor hit “My Special Prayer” was a hit in 1969 for him but Percy Sledge’s cover version was more successful internationally. In 1970, Joe Simon won a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. Several of his albums entered the Top 20 on the R&B Albums chart including The Chokin’ Kind (1969), The Sounds of Simon (1971), Drowning in the Sea of Love (1972), The Power of Joe Simon (1973), and Get Down (1975). By the end of the ‘70s, he became disenchanted with secular music and devoted his life to being a pastor and recorded a few gospel albums up through the 1990s. During his time away from secular music, rap and hip-hop artists like OutKast, Lil’ Kim, and Memphis Bleek began sampling some of his classic recordings. Joe Simon died on December 10, 2021, at the age of 85.

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