{"id":701542,"date":"2026-07-20T12:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T12:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/701542\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T12:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T12:34:08","slug":"tributes-paid-to-influential-soul-singer-ray-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/701542\/","title":{"rendered":"Tributes paid to influential soul singer Ray King"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tributes have been paid to Ray King, one of the most influential singers in the ska and 2 Tone music genres, following the announcement of his death.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Born Vibert Cornwall in St Vincent and the Grenadines, he came to the UK in 1961 and arrived in Northampton, before moving to Coventry two years later, after being told it was the place to become a singer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Pete Chambers, the founder of the Coventry Music Museum, said King had a stage presence &#8220;like James Brown&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He was the kind of guy who controlled the stage with just one look, one little movement of the arm or whatever. He was a real professional and such a lovely guy and an influential guy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In an interview with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ugHxaJmzP10\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, external<\/a> in 2010, King said his musical influences as a young man and performer ranged from Sam Cooke, Nat King Cole, and Elvis Presley to Pat Boone and Doris Day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He formed the Ray King Soul Band and performed throughout Coventry, with their first gig at The Walsgrave Club in the city.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The reputation of the band&#8217;s professionalism and popularity led to a six-month residency at the Playboy Club in London, with the likes of Jimmy Hendrix and Paul McCartney joining the band on stage on an ad-hoc basis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tributes have been paid to Ray King, one of the most influential singers in the ska and 2&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-701542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}