Ben E King received an award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2012
R&B and soul singer Ben E King, best known for the classic song Stand By Me, has died at the age of 76.
King started his career in the late 1950s with The Drifters, singing on hits including There Goes My Baby and Save The Last Dance For Me.
After going solo, he hit the US top five with Stand By Me in 1961.
It returned to the charts in the 1980s, including a three-week spell at number one in the UK, following its use in the film of the same name and a TV advert.
The song has charted nine times on the US Billboard 100 over the years - King's version twice and seven times with covers by artists like John Lennon and Spyder Turner.
It was also sampled for Sean Kingston's 2007 number one single Beautiful Girls.
In 1999, the BMI announced that the song, written by King with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, was the fourth most-played track of the 20th Century on US radio and TV.
Earlier this year, the US Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry, declaring that "it was King's incandescent vocal that made it a classic".
King's other hits included Spanish Harlem, Amor, Don't Play That Song (You Lied) and Supernatural Thing - Part I.
Ben E King had six songs in the US Billboard top 40 between 1961 and 1975
The singer died on Thursday, his publicist Phil Brown told BBC News.
Fellow musician Gary US Bonds wrote on Facebook that King was "one of the sweetest, gentlest and gifted souls that I have had the privilege of knowing and calling my friend for more than 50 years".
He wrote: "I can tell you that Ben E will be missed more than words can say. Our sincere condolences go out to Betty and the entire family.
"Thank you Ben E for your friendship and the wonderful legacy you leave behind."
Pay dispute
Born Benjamin Earl Nelson, he initially joined a doo-wop group called The Five Crowns, who became The Drifters after that group's manager fired the band's previous members.
He co-wrote and sang on the band's single There Goes My Baby, which reached number two in the US in 1959.
But the group members were paid just $100 per week by their manager and, after a request for a pay rise was turned down, the singer decided to go it alone. In the process, he adopted the surname King.
His first solo hit, in 1961, was Spanish Harlem, which was followed by Stand By Me.
King had three tunes in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll
He originally intended Stand By Me for The Drifters, but said they turned it down. So he worked on it when Atlantic Records boss Ahmet Ertegun paired him with Leiber and Stoller.
"In my vocal I think you can hear something of my earlier times when I'd sing in subway halls for the echo, and perform doo-wop on street corners," he told The Guardian in 2013.
"But I had a lot of influences, too - singers like Sam Cooke, Brook Benton and Roy Hamilton. The song's success lay in the way Leiber and Stoller took chances, though, borrowing from symphonic scores, and we had a brilliant string arranger."
Stand By Me, Spanish Harlem and There Goes My Baby were all named on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll, and were all given a Grammy Hall of Fame Award.
As the 1960s went on and rock 'n' roll took off, King's commercial success waned.
He continued to tour and, in the mid-1970s, Ertegun was so impressed by one of his shows in Miami that he decided to re-sign him to Atlantic.
That led to a return to the charts with Supernatural Thing - Part I, which reached the US top five in 1975.
He returned to the spotlight again in the late 1980s when Stand By Me was the theme song for Rob Reiner's film about boyhood friendship and was used in a British TV commercial for Levi's jeans.
Ben E. King


, un chanteur connu des deux côtés de l'Atlantique pour le titre célèbre «  », est décédé jeudi à l'âge de 76 ans. Selon son agent, Phil Brown, King est mort dans le  de causes naturelles.

À la suite de la nouvelle du décès de King, de nombreuses personnes ont envoyé leurs condoléances et lui ont rendu hommage en ligne via les médias sociaux. Le chanteur de  , ancien acolyte de Ben E. King, a écrit sur sa page Facebook qu'il était 

King, de son vrai nom Benjamin Earl Nelson a commencé sa carrière dans un groupe  appelé «  » pour finalement devenir la voix principale de «  ». Selon la BBC, les chansons, « Stand by Me », «  » et «  » sont sur la liste des 500 chansons qui ont façonné le .