Evelyn "Champagne" King

As "Shame" from 1977 rapidly established itself as a dancefloor staple and climbed toward the Billboard Hot 100 Top Ten, many might have assumed the previously unknown Evelyn "Champagne" King had already worked for years as a background vocalist before claiming center stage. The track’s commanding and confident delivery, however, actually introduced a teenager whose debut album Smooth Talk revealed equal command of funk, pop-R&B, and quiet storm soul; the set became the first of her three gold-certified LPs. Although she surfaced amid disco’s peak with one of its signature singles, the breadth shown on that opening release confirmed her capacity to adjust to the swiftly changing contours of contemporary R&B. After building lasting success with songwriter and producer T. Life, she later thrived with Morrie Brown and Kashif on the post-disco cuts “I’m in Love” (1981) and “Love Come Down” (1982), buoyant midtempo tracks that topped the R&B and dance charts, reached the pop Top 40, and have retained as much staying power as “Shame.” Having accumulated nine charting albums by the end of the 1980s, King recorded more sparingly yet continued to perform live; the 2008 single “The Dance” placed her in a select group of artists whose Billboard dance chart entries span three decades.

Her discovery at an esteemed label occurred through family ties yet remained accidental. King’s mother and sister held cleaning positions at Philadelphia International Records, and one evening the sister could not work, so King took the shift. The building should have been empty, but T. Life—a songwriter, producer, arranger, and musician deeply connected to PIR and the broader Philly scene—stood in the hallway and heard her singing Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” while she cleaned. Although she had already sung in church, performed with her siblings, and played in bands covering Labelle and Rufus & Chaka Khan, two of her strongest influences, she had no intention of securing a recording contract at age fourteen. Impressed, T. Life brought her to PIR heads Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, who declined. Undeterred, King and Life cut a demo that eventually caught RCA’s attention after lingering in the label’s offices for more than a year. With backing from her parents—father Erik, who had performed with various doo-wop groups, and mother Johnniea, who had managed an act—the teenager signed via Life’s production arrangement with RCA.

Working with T. Life and several of his Philadelphia associates, including Bunny Sigler, Dexter Wansel, and members of Instant Funk, King recorded Smooth Talk. The album gained momentum from the John Fitch and Reuben Cross song “Shame,” which entered Billboard’s dance chart in October 1977, when King was seventeen. A gradual riser, it reached the R&B and pop charts only six months later yet climbed to the Top Ten on both, matching its dance-chart peak. The funkier follow-up “I Don’t Know If It’s Right,” written by Life and Fitch, also reached the R&B Top Ten and peaked at number 23 on the Hot 100. Both singles earned gold certification, as did Smooth Talk. In 1979, King and Life earned another gold LP with Music Box, which yielded modest hits in the title track and “Out There.” Sweet Delight followed in 1980 but was withdrawn after a lukewarm response to its rock elements; Call On Me was swiftly prepared as a replacement, blending leftover Sweet Delight tracks with new material such as the energetic “Let’s Get Funky Tonight,” which returned King, as co-writer, to the upper ranks of the dance chart.

Most of the songs on her 1981 and 1982 studio albums—I’m in Love (number 28 pop, number six R&B) and Get Loose (number 27 pop, number one R&B)—were crafted with Morrie Brown, Kashif, and Paul Laurence. The trio, working in varying combinations, had already achieved success with Melba Moore, Howard Johnson, and High Fashion. King thus played a significant role in guiding pop-oriented R&B toward drum machines and synthesizers, a direction well suited to her buoyant voice. RCA chose to drop her nickname from these releases. The two albums produced six charting singles, led by “I’m in Love” and “Love Come Down,” both of which topped the R&B and dance charts; the former reached number 40 on the Hot 100, while the latter climbed to number 17. King issued three further RCA albums annually through 1985—Face to Face, So Romantic, and A Long Time Coming—collaborating with figures such as Solar Records studio mastermind Leon Sylvers III and Foster Sylvers, André Cymone, the System, Jimmy Douglass, Rufus members Bobby Watson and Hawk Wolinski, and T. Life once more. “Action,” “Shake Down,” and “Just for the Night” each entered the R&B Top 20, while “Your Personal Touch,” handled by Allen George and Fred McFarlane, reached the Top Ten on the R&B and dance charts. She closed the decade on EMI with Flirt (1988) and The Girl Next Door (1989); Leon Sylvers III helped her incorporate new jack swing and house elements traceable to their earlier individual work. The biggest single from those albums, “Hold On to What You’ve Got,” marked her final Top Ten entry on the R&B and dance charts.

King released one new studio album in each of the following two decades. Supported by the U.K.’s Expansion label, she issued I’ll Keep a Light On in 1995, featuring contributions from Larry Graham, Billy Preston, Jeff Lorber, and her husband, guitarist and producer Freddie Fox. Soon afterward she appeared on Divas of Color’s number ten dance hit “One More Time.” Her next LP, Open Book, arrived independently in 2007; its strongest single, “The Dance,” nearly surpassed the chart position of “One More Time.” Beyond featured appearances and later headlining tracks such as 2015’s “Dance All Night,” King has maintained a performing schedule into the 2020s.