Salute to Evelyn "Champagne" King

Evelyn "Champagne" King was born in the Bronx, New York but grew up in Philadelphia.  She was discovered at the age of 16 when an executive at Philadelphia International Records heard her singing in a company washroom (King was working as a cleaning woman) and began coaching her singing.  This led to King eventually signing a contract with RCA. 







King's debut album Smooth Talk was released in 1977.  One single, "Shame" became a huge hit, in fact much bigger than its national #9 ranking.  The national chart was formed by taking an "average" of its sample of radio stations.  Many stations began playing the song early and several of them took it to #1.  By the time  the "stragglers" added the song, they had been playing "Shame" for 15-20 weeks.  Naturally, people get tired of even the best songs by then so "Shame" had dropped quite a bit from its peak, if not off the chart of those early radio stations entirely.  Thus, when you take an average, that average is going to be lower, even though the song hit Top 5 in nearly every spot in America. The song was of course a huge hit on the dance floors of America and it sold over a million copies.  "Shame" was nominated for Favorite Disco Single at the American Music Awards.  A second single, "I Don't Know If It's Right" peaked at #23 but it too sold over a million.

If one thing is responsible for the success not continuing, it was because King did not record a follow-up (Get Loose) until 1982, five years later.  "Love Come Down" did hit #1 on both the R&B and dance charts and #7 in the U.K.  "Betcha' She Don't Love You" reached #2 on the R&B chart.  King scored eight R&B hits over the next years, landing in the Top 10 in that small segment of the radio audience with three songs--"Your Personal Touch" in 1985, "Flirt" in 1986 and "Hold on to What You've Got" in 1988.  But she could do no better than #75 ("Action") on the popular chart. 






In 2007, King released her first album in 18 years Open Book.  Her single "The Dance" was a hit on the Dance chart.