Jimmy Beaumont: Doo-wop singer who co-wrote iconic ballad

Jimmy Beaumont, singer. Born: 21 October, 1940, in Pittsburgh, United States. Died: 7 October, 2017, in McKeesport, near Pittsburgh, aged 76.
Jimmy Beaumont, lead singer of the Skyliners, has died at the age of 76. Picture: APJimmy Beaumont, lead singer of the Skyliners, has died at the age of 76. Picture: AP
Jimmy Beaumont, lead singer of the Skyliners, has died at the age of 76. Picture: AP

Jimmy Beaumont, the lead singer of the doo-wop group the Skyliners and a co-writer of the iconic ballad Since I Don’t Have You has died at age 76.

Joe Rock, who would eventually manage the Skyliners, was helping to promote Beaumont’s former group, the Crescents, when Rock wrote some lyrics lamenting his girlfriend’s impending departure for flight attendants’ school. That was 1958, and Beaumont was 18. Beaumont set the lyrics to music, and a hit was born.

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“I had been listening to all the doo-wop groups from that period – the Platters, the Moonglows. I guess just from listening it came out of me,” Beaumont said in 2009.

The song has been covered by Barbra Streisand, Patti LaBelle, Art Garfunkel, Don McLean and even Guns N’ Roses. It was released in 1958 but hit No 1 on the Cashbox R&B chart and No 3 on the Billboard R&B chart in 1959.

The Skyliners were the first white group to top the Cashbox R&B charts, and Beaumont said when American Bandstand’s Dick Clark signed them to his Caravan of Stars tour, people expected a black act.

“At the Apollo Theater in New York, everyone was laughing and pointing when we came out,” Beaumont said. “They couldn’t believe we were a white group. They got real quiet during the song, then when we went into the ‘yous’ the women in the audience were singing along.”

The group had two lesser hits, This I Swear and Pennies from Heaven, before disbanding in 1963. It regrouped and scored a Top 100 hit in 1975 with Where Have They Gone. That gave the group, with Beaumont as the only original member, enough traction to keep performing until last month.

Beaumont is survived by his wife, two daughters and five grandchildren.

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