Frankie Beverly has passed away at the age of 77, writes James Jackson for The Philadelphia Tribune.
Beverly was best known as founding member and lead vocalist of the soul and funk group, Maze, which he founded in 1970.
Beverly got his start performing gospel music as a child at a nearby church, where he became a soloist.
In 1959 at the age of 13, he performed in a group called The Silhouettes. At the age of 16, he founded another group, The Blenders, an acappella doo-wop group.
After graduating from Germantown High School in 1964, he changed his birth name Howard to Frankie, due to his appreciation for R&B doo-wop pop star Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers.
Beverly was born and raised in Philadelphia’s East Germantown neighborhood on Dec. 6, 1946.
His influence on the soul, funk, and R&B music genres have lasted the last six decades.
Just this past May, Beverly was honored with a street renaming on the East Germantown block of N Norwood Street between Church Lane and West Godfrey. It’s now known as Frankie Beverly Way.
In July, Beverly went on a “I Wanna Thank You” tour at the Dell Music Center in Strawberry Mansion, which turned out to be a farewell tour in more ways than one.
Read more about the six-decade legacy of Frankie Beverly in The Philadelphia Tribune.
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