In early 1959, they went into the studio with producers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller to cut their first records. The new Drifters toured for about a year, playing to often hostile audiences who knew they were a completely different group. Drifters manager George Treadwell, dissatisfied with the group members' unreliability and lack of success, fired them all in the summer of 1958 and hired the Five Crowns to assume the name of the Drifters (which he owned). The Five Crowns performed several gigs at the Apollo Theater along with the Drifters, whose career had begun to flounder in the years since original lead singer Clyde McPhatter departed.
He subsequently worked at his father's restaurant as a singing waiter, which led to an invitation to become the baritone singer in a doo wop outfit called the Five Crowns in 1958. While still in high school, he was offered a chance to join the Moonglows, but was simply too young and inexperienced to stick. In junior high, he began performing with a street corner doo wop group called the Four B's, which won second place in an Apollo Theater talent contest. King was born Benjamin Earl Nelson in Henderson, North Carolina, in 1938, and sang with his church choir before the family moved to Harlem in 1947. King's approach influenced countless smooth soul singers in his wake, and his records were key forerunners of the Motown sound. King's plaintive baritone had all the passion of gospel, but the settings in which it was displayed were tailored more for his honey smooth phrasing and crisp enunciation, proving for perhaps the first time that R&B could be sophisticated and accessible to straight pop audiences. From the groundbreaking orchestrated productions of the Drifters to his own solo hits, Ben E.
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