Fayette Pinkney, an original member of the Three Degrees who lent her strong, soulful voice to the 1970s hits When Will I See You Again? and TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia), the theme song of the television show Soul Train, died Saturday in Lansdale, Pa. She was 61.
The death was confirmed by Abington Health Lansdale Hospital. The cause was acute respiratory failure, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
THREE DEGREES
The Three Degrees formed in the early 1960s when Pinkney, who was still going to Overbrook High School in Philadelphia, joined with Shirley Porter and Linda Turner under the management of Richard Barrett, the record producer behind the Chantels and Little Anthony and the Imperials.
For more than a decade, Pinkney was the one constant in a group whose members came and went. She sang on the group's first single, Gee Baby (I'm Sorry), on its 1970 hit Maybe and on the hits for Philadelphia International Records in the 1970s that helped the define the Philadelphia sound.
In a statement, Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, the label's founders, called the Three Degrees ``our Philly sound version of Motown's Supremes, but bigger and stronger and melodic.''
The group's first two singles for Philadelphia International, Dirty Ol' Man and I Didn't Know, were modest successes, but TSOP, a mostly instrumental piece featuring the studio band MFSB, reached No. 1 on both the R&B and pop charts in 1974. When Will I See You Again?, which sold more than 2 million records, reached No. 2 on the pop charts that year.
Their close-harmony singing made the Three Degrees a popular nightclub act. A performance at the Copacabana in Manhattan ended up in the 1975 film The French Connection.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MstNKkN3r34http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S60INr8-yu8
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