Biography[edit]
She was born in Sandersville, Georgia, and reportedly started singing with gospel groups including the Queen of Gospel Albertina Walker and The Caravans, though this has been questioned.[1] By 1963 she was working in New York City on sessions and as a backing singer at the Apollo Theatre. She also recorded some demos for Motown Records, but none were ever released.[1] Under her then married name of Doris Willingham, she recorded her first single, "Running Away from Loneliness" in 1966.[2][3] This release on Jay Boy Records was not a success, so she continued working as a session singer, mainly in Philadelphia. She also sang back-up on Nina Simone's live album, A Very Rare Evening, recorded in Germany in 1969.[1]
In 1969, former Atlantic Records producer Jerry 'Swamp Dogg' Williams Jr. signed her as a solo artiste, renaming her Doris Duke and recording the album I'm A Loser at the Capricorn studio in Macon, Georgia. The album was eventually issued on Canyon Records, and over the years became regarded, by Dave Godin and others, as one of the finest deep soul records of all time. The first single, "To the Other Woman", reached no. 7 in the Billboard R&B chart and no. 50 on the pop chart in early 1970, and the follow-up "Feet Start Walking" also made the R&B chart,[4] but success was cut short when the record company collapsed.[1]
She recorded a second album, A Legend in Her Own Time, with Swamp Dogg, issued on the Mankind label in 1971. However, it was not commercially successful, and her career at one point became confused with that of "the real" Doris Duke, a white heiress, who began performing with a gospel choir in New Jersey.[1] Having remarried, and using the name Doris Logan, she temporarily retired to bring up her young children, before undergoing another divorce.[1] In 1973, she recorded unsuccessfully for Bob Shad's Mainstream label, before being signed to the British Contempo label in 1974. Her subsequent album Woman, recorded in London, received good reviews but few sales, and thereafter she retired into obscurity
R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, who were students at the University of Georgia. R.E.M. was noted for Buck's arpeggiated "jangle" guitar playing; Stipe's distinctive vocal style, unique stage presence, and cryptic lyrics; Mills's countermelodic bass lines and backing vocals; and Berry's tight, economical drumming. In the early 1990s, other alternative rock acts suc...
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