Brenton Wooden, the soul singer who sang 1967’s catchy “Oogum Boogum Tune” and adopted it with the Prime 10 hit “Gimme Little Signal,” died Friday at his residence in Moreno Valley, CA. He was 83.
His managers Isabel and Manny Gallegos confirmed the information to a number of media retailers, saying Wooden died peacefully in his sleep.
Born Alfred Smith on July 26, 1941, in Shreveport, LA, Wooden was raised in San Pedro simply south of Los Angeles. He started singing and taking part in piano at an early age at signed with Brent Information and later Wand Information however didn’t produce a success for both. He then switched to Double Shot Information in Hollywood, the place he recorded “The Oogum Boogum Tune.”
A borderline-novelty tune fueled by Wooden’s candy falsetto and piano hook, the monitor went Prime 10 at L.A.’s main Prime 40 station KHJ-AM and dented the nationwide Prime 40 in the course of the Summer season of Love. He would carry out it on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, however his signature track could be its follow-up.
“Gimme Little Signal” was a slow-building soul masterclass. Higher identified by its sung refrain lyric “simply gimme some sort of signal, lady,” the midtempo monitor crashed the Billboard Scorching 100 in August 1967 and peaked at No. 9 a couple of weeks later. It hit the UK singles chart 57 years in the past this week, and reached No. 8 after Wooden carried out it on the favored TV music collection Prime of the Pops. It was among the many few Nineteen Sixties pop singles to not point out the precise title in its lyrics.
Watch the official lyric video for the track right here and one for “The Oogum Boogum Tune” under:
However “Gimme Little Signal” would mark Wooden’s profession zenith. He cracked the Billboard Prime 40 early 1968 with “Child You Bought It” and dented the Scorching 100 later that yr with “Lovey Dovey Kinda Lovin’.” Wooden’s sole charting album, 1967’s Oogum Boogum, peaked at No. 187 in 1967.
He went on to have a minor R&B hit with “Some Bought It, Some Don’t” in 1968 and would launch plenty of singles into the late Seventies. “Come Softly to Me” was his solely different charting track, reaching No. 97 on Billboard’s R&B tally in 1978.
Wooden additionally appeared within the 1969 film Popdown. Data on survivors or a memorial have been incomplete.
Right here’s the official lyric video for “The Oogum Boogum Tune”:
DEADLINE RELATED VIDEO:
