Remembering Billy Stewart: A ‘voice that still sings’

Kudos to the Johnston County Heritage Center in eastern North Carolina for commemorating rock’n’roll kingpin Billy Stewart during its Black History Month observance in February 2025.

A social media posting by Allen Left, a Smithfield area history buff, summarized Billy Stewart’s gigantic contributions to the music industry. He noted that Billy Stewart’s story “collided” with Johnston County’s history in an “unexpected and tragic” way.

Born and raised in Washington, D.C., the 32-year-old Billy Stewart lost his life near Smithfield on Jan. 17, 1970, when the vehicle he was driving veered off U.S. Route 301 and plunged into the Neuse River during a mid-day accident. 

Stewart and three passengers, all members of his band, known as The Soul Kings, perished. (They were: Norman Rich of Washington D.C., William Cathey of Charlotte, N.C., and Rico Hightower of Newark, N.J.)

The four men were trapped inside Stewart’s shiny, new Ford Thunderbird and drowned, according to Warren Grimes, who was a volunteer member of the ambulance crew that was dispatched to the scene that day. (Grimes was interviewed by Scott Mason for a segment of WRAL-TV’s “Tar Heel Traveler” series.)

When they crashed, the musicians were traveling from Virginia to a nightclub engagement in Columbia, S.C., reported Michael Jack Kirby, an authority on music history from the 1950s and ‘60s. The accident was attributed to a “vehicle mechanical failure,” and the Stewart family accepted a cash settlement from the manufacturer.

Left said that the Black History community gathering in Smithfield was a reawakening to remember “the incredible music Billy Stewart gave to the world. Fifty-five years later, his voice, his art, his legacy – they still sing.”

 

“Billy’s voice was a force, unruly, electric, full of fire. (He was) a man who could take a song and twist it into something untamed, something unmistakably his,” Left said.

“His 1966 rendition of ‘Summertime’ didn’t just cover George Gershwin, it shattered it, rebuilt it, baptized it in soul. What began as a slow, haunting Gershwin standard (an aria composed for the opera ‘Porgy and Bess’ in 1934 with librettists Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward) became a full-throttle, million-selling masterpiece under Billy’s command.”

 

George and Ira Gershwin

DuBose Heyward

Left continued: “Billy Stewart could make a ballad groove and turn a quiet love song into a full-blown soul explosion. His scat-heavy, stuttering vocal style was decades ahead of its time.” Indeed, Stewart’s talent at “word-doubling and trills, swoops, jungle calls and deviations from the straight line” earned him the title as the original “motormouth.”

Although known primarily as an R&B singer, Billy Stewart left an indelible mark on the Carolina beach music scene. Several of his tunes (in addition to “Summertime”) recorded between 1962-68, remain beach music standards. Among these titles are “Sitting in the Park,” “I Do Love You,” “Strange Feeling,” “Cross My Heart” and “Fat Boy.”

Growing up, Billy Stewart and his three younger brothers formed the Four Stewart Brothers, a gospel group under the direction of their mother, Emma Amanda Ruffin Stewart, a native of Wilson, N.C. For five years, the boys had their own radio show that came on every Sunday. Billy not only sang, he played the piano.

Billy Stewart was “discovered” in 1956 by legendary guitarist Bo Diddley, who recruited Billy, who was still a teenager, to join his band in Chicago.

 

Left said: “Billy Stewart’s nickname ‘Fat Boy’ wasn’t an insult, it was a badge of honor, an embrace of his larger-than-life presence.” His weight, which peaked at about 350 pounds, probably contributed to his health issue with diabetes, but it “never stopped him from pouring himself into his music.”

Stewart was an ebullient, rotund, piano-playing crooner whose highly original style of singing has not been replicated before or since. One writer described Stewart’s vocal stylings as the R&B equivalent of scat singing.

Billy’s lyrical twists aren’t easy to describe, but his extended tongue-stutter certainly must be one of the most recognizable song intros of all time and his ad-libbed line “Little darlin’ do not let a tear fall-a from your eye-eye-eye-eye-eye...” makes for a spectacular ending to “Summertime.”

Stewart performed live on Dick Clark’s 1967 production “Where The Action Is.”