Freda Charcilia Payne, multi-talented and talented, is most well-known for her singing career. However, she also has performed in musicals and appeared in movies throughout her life. She was briefly the host of her own television talk show. Freda Charcilia Payne was born in Detroit, MI on September 19, 1942. She developed a love for music as a youngster thanks to jazz singers like Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald. Payne’s musical career took off soon after. She began singing in radio commercials, which attracted the attention of many music-biz titans. Berry Gordy, Jr. tried to sign Payne to Motown, his fledgling record company. Duke Ellington used Payne as the featured vocalist with his orchestra for two nights at Pittsburgh. Ellington offered the teenager a ten year contract. In both cases, Payne was turned down by her mother. Payne was a great jazz singer in the 1960s. She toured the country with Quincy Jones and Bill Cosby and released After the Lights Go Down Low and Many More!, a jazz/big-band-based album. Payne was also featured on TV shows such as Johnny Carson, David Frost and Merv Griffin three years later with How Do You Say That I Don’t Like You Anymore. But it wasn’t until Payne signed on to the Invictus label in 1969 (headed by longtime friends/former Motown songwriters/producers Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Brian Holland) and issued the fine album Band of Gold that she scored her breakthrough hit single, the album’s title track, which peaked at number three in the U.S. and topped the chart in the U.K. in 1970. Payne did not have a hit as big as “Band of Gold”, but she had several other hits in the early 1970s, including “Deeper and deeper,” “Cherish what’s dear to you,” “You Brought the joy,” and the Vietnam protest song, “Bring the Boys home.” Payne, Contact, Reaching out, and other albums were released throughout the 1970s.
