Evelyn "Champagne" King

Singer Evelyn “Champagne” King was an R&B chart fixture from her smash 1977 disco debut “Shame” through the late ’80s. • King was born in the Bronx and raised in Philadelphia. She’s from a musical family—her uncle Avon Long was a Broadway performer, and her father sang backup for groups at the Apollo Theater. • She was discovered at age 15 when producer Theodore T. Life overheard her singing in the washroom at Philadelphia International Records, where her mother worked as an office cleaner. This led to a deal with RCA Records. • Her 1977 debut single, “Shame,” went Top 10 on the pop, R&B, and dance singles charts. It appears on the album Smooth Talk, which went gold. • Her next few albums for RCA all yielded popular R&B singles. She topped the R&B chart with 1981’s “I’m In Love” and 1982’s “Love Come Down,” the latter of which became her second Top 20 pop hit. • Her commercial success began to wane in the latter half of the ’80s, and she only released two albums in the ’90s and 2000s. In 2015, she teamed with Martha Wash and Linda Clifford to form The First Ladies of Disco. The trio scored a Top 10 dance hit that year with “Show Some Love.”