Al Wilson

Al Wilson, the soul singer best known for topping the pop charts with “Show and Tell,” came into the world on June 19, 1939, in Meridian, Mississippi. He began performing professionally while still a child, and by age twelve he was already fronting his own spiritual quartet, contributing to the church choir, and stepping in with country-and-western covers whenever bookings required it. During high school his family relocated to San Bernardino, California, where he took whatever work he could find—delivering mail, cleaning buildings, or handling office tasks—while quietly teaching himself the drums. After finishing school he spent four years on the road with Johnny Harris & the Statesmen, then served two years in the U.S. Navy, where he sang with an enlisted-men’s chorus. Once discharged, he settled in Los Angeles and worked the local nightclub circuit before joining the R&B vocal group the Jewels; from there he moved on to the Rollers and later the instrumental outfit the Souls.

In 1966 manager Marc Gordon arranged an a cappella audition for Johnny Rivers. The “Secret Agent Man” artist not only placed Wilson on his Soul City label but also produced the sessions that yielded the 1968 R&B hit “The Snake.” A smaller success, “Do What You Gotta Do,” surfaced the same year, after which Wilson slipped from view until 1973, when he released the platinum-certified album Weighing In. Its momentum came chiefly from the shimmering “Show and Tell,” a song Johnny Mathis had passed on that ultimately sold well over a million copies. “The La La Peace Song” became another major single in 1974, and two years later “I’ve Got a Feeling We’ll Be Seeing Each Other Again” climbed to number three on the R&B chart. Wilson’s final chart appearance arrived in 1979 with “Count the Days.” He spent the next two decades playing clubs and lounges before re-recording his signature material for the 2001 album Spice of Life. Kidney failure ended his life on April 21, 2008.