Jimmy Beaumont, the golden-voiced singer of the Skyliners, died Saturday in his sleep at his home in McKeesport at age 76 after a career that lasted nearly 60 years.
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was still singing as recently as Sept. 17 when the Skyliners performed a concert in New York.
He was best known for the 1959 hit “Since I Don’t Have You,” a magical, tearful ballad that topped the Cashbox R&B chart and went to No. 3 on the Billboard R&B chart.
Mr. Beaumont, from the city’s Knoxville neighborhood, was just 18 when it happened. Joe Rock, a promo man working with Mr. Beaumont’s group the Crescents, jotted down the lyrics as he sat in his car at a series of stoplights, lamenting that his girlfriend was leaving for flight attendant school on the West Coast.
Rock took them to Mr. Beaumont, who wrote a melody just as quickly as Mr. Rock wrote the words.
Thirteen labels rejected the song as a demo, but the record was released in late December 1958. In short order it went to No. 1 in Pittsburgh, prompting an invitation to “American Bandstand.”
“He was one of the people who inspired me to get in the business,” said Glenwillard native Lou Christie, who had many successful hits of his own. “When I found out they were from Pittsburgh...I was cleaning the cellar and I heard Art Pallan playing ‘Since I Don’t Have You’ on on KDKA. I thought, ‘Oh my God, what is this song?’ It was not doo-wop. It had a sophistication that was way extended: Strings and horns and classical changes. Done so beautifully. I said, ‘I have to get to know this guy,’ and that’s why I got into this business.”
“Since I Don’t Have You” went to No. 12 on the Billboard Pop chart on March 23, 1959, and No. 3 on R&B charts. In Cashbox, the Skyliners became the first white group to top the R&B charts.
For the past four decades, the song has taken on a life of its own, remade by the likes of Barbra Streisand, Patti LaBelle, Art Garfunkel, Don McLean, Ronnie Milsap, The Brian Setzer Orchestra and Guns N’ Roses. The song was used in George Lucas’ 1973 period classic “American Graffiti” and also turned up in “Lethal Weapon 2.” Stevie Wonder, a huge fan of the song, performed it at the Mellon Arena in 2007, and then, on his return trip in 2015, summoned the Skyliners out of their seats, to their surprise, to perform it with him.
The Skyliners hit No. 26 with a second ballad, “This I Swear,” in June 1959, and scored another hit with a cover of “Pennies From Heaven” a year later. The group split in 1963, just before the British Invasion, and reunited for an oldies revival concert in 1970 at Madison Square Garden.
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