Brook Benton

The pop and R&B singer Brook Benton will be best known to modern music lovers for his rendition of the Tony Joe White song 'Rainy Night in Georgia' which went to number one in the US R&B Charts in 1971 and was also a crossover success in the mainstream charts. The hit was in fact a surprise comeback hit for Benton who had previously enjoyed a very successful career in the 1950s and '60s with a mixture of rock & roll, blues and pop hits, many of which made the top five in the US singles chart.

Benton began his recording career in 1955 with his version of 'The Kentuckian Song' but it wasn't until 1959 when he released 'Just a Matter of Time' co-written with Clyde Otis and Belford Hicks that he hit the big time. The song topped the R&B Charts and peaked at number three in the Billboard Hot 100 and launched Benton into stardom.

As his career started to fade in the late 1960s the artist changed record companies to Cotillion, a subsidiary of Atlantic, and within a year his version of 'Rainy Night in Georgia' had sold over a million copies. During his career Benton had 49 singles in the Hot 100 and numerous successes across other charts. In his late fifties he was growing weak from the effects of spinal meningitis which eventually led to pneumonia and he passed away in 1988 at the age of 59.