Here’s our final “pick” from this week in 1959, Clyde McPhatter‘s “A Lover’s Question”. Co-writer Brook Benton sang the demo version and presented it to Jerry Wexler and Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic Records. That’s Brook Benton doing the finger snaps.

When the first of two “Show of Stars” presentations came to Vancouver in 1956, the line-up included Bill Doggett, The Five Satins, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Eddie Cooley, LaVern Baker and Clyde McPhatter. Of the group of stars the one that impressed me the most musically was Chuck Berry, but next to him, the friendly and shy Clyde McPhatter.

Clyde formed a new group with singers from many groups that had drifted together in 1953. They called the group “The Drifters” for this very reason. Their first hit was a Jesse Stone classic called “Money Honey”. Clyde wrote the deliciously controversial “Honey Love”, which was a big hit for the group in those early days.

Clyde went out on his own after coming out of the U.S. Army and he had a few hits, but this was his biggest: #10 this week in 1959 on the CKWX Sensational Sixty, “A Lover’s Question”.