Bobby McClure

Born: April 21, 1942, Chicago, Illinois. Died: November 13, 1992, Los Angeles, California. McClure was born in Chicago, Illinois. By the age of two his family had moved to St. Louis, where he sang in church and gospel groups in his youth. He sang with The Soul Stirrers (then led by Sam Cooke) in the 1950s, and moved into secular music soon after, singing with Bobby & the Vocals, Big Daddy Jenkins, and Oliver Sain. McClure, who recorded for Checker, a subsidiary of Chess Records, scored two hit singles in the U.S. in 1965, and thereafter helped launch the careers of Little Milton and Fontella Bass; during this time he also played with Otis Clay and Shirley Brown. "Peak of Love" was a soul hit in late 1966, however it barely scraped the pop charts. McClure moved on from music in the 1970s, working in an Illinois jail as a corrections officer, though he recorded some singles in the 1980s. McClure suffered a brain aneurysm in 1992, and died in Los Angeles, California, of complications from a stroke soon after.