Henry Fambrough, the Last Original Spinners Member, Dies at Age 85

Henry Fambrough, the last surviving founding member of the legendary R&B/soul group The Spinners, died Wednesday, February 9, at age 85 of natural causes, the Detroit Free Press reported.

According to a post on the group’s social media sites, Fambrough passed away “peacefully in his northern Virginia home."

Fambrough was known for his rich baritone voice, his smooth stage moves, and his trademark handlebar mustache. While he generally sang backing vocals and harmonies on most songs, he was featured on lead on a number tunes, including the Top 30 1973 hit “Ghetto Child.”

While The Spinners are most associated with the Philadelphia soul sound, the group actually hails from Detroit. Formed in 1954, the group enjoyed sporadic success recording for Motown Records during the 1960s. In 1970, The Spinners scored their first Top 20 hit with “It’s a Shame,” a song co-written by Stevie Wonder.

The group found major success after it moved to Atlantic Records in the early 1970s and began working with legendary Philadelphia producer/songwriter Thom Bell. Among The Spinners’ major 1970s hits were “I’ll Be Around,” “Could It Be I’m Falling in Love,” “One of a Kind (Love Affair),” “Games People Play,” “The Rubberband Man,” and the chart-topping duet with Dionne Warwick “Then Came You.”

Fambrough was on hand for The Spinners’ induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this past November in New York.

“Everybody, it’s a dream come true,” he said in a pre-recorded speech. “You think about things like this when you first make your first record. Words cannot describe being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. And I thank the public. I thank our fans. I thank everyone, especially my fellow partners.”

He added, “We didn’t think about making a living of it. We just thought about going on having fun singing, because we enjoyed singing. And you can’t beat that.”

Fambrough retired from the group in early 2023 and, according to the Detroit Free Press, he moved from his longtime Michigan home to Virginia with wife Norma then. A representative for the group told the newspaper that Fambrough entered hospice care in January 2024.

“As a vocalist, he had a voice that never wavered. It never diminished through the years—it was still as smooth as butter,” current Spinners bass singer Jessie Peck told the newspaper. “As a performer, he was always consistent. He set the standard for the rest of us about how the Spinners should be: always on point, with every step.”

Fambrough is survived by Norma, his wife of 52 years, as well as his daughter, Heather, and a sister, Martha.

The Spinners continue to tour with their current lineup, and have a bunch of concerts scheduled in 2024.

Thanks for posting this. We're at the point of having a legion of truly great musicians leaving (preceding) us and it's apparent those that the music industry has pushed on the youth have little to no talent with a few exceptions that sneaked by them.

Had I not been working in a factory where people are allowed to play their favorite audio (I can't say 'music') I wouldn't have learned that a form of rap has actually ditched the musical element entirely in favor of a low bass, drum and rhythm guitar as an afterthought for some profane, inane and self-worshiping excuse for poetry that doesn't even rhymes in a monotonous spoken word manner (covering for the fact they can't sing) obviously designed to lull listeners into a none-thinking state while absorbing hypnotic suggestions ("Stay on the plantation. Massa's not kicking you out for the Replacements. Continue to pay no attention to how we've lied to you all this time.")

Sadly the fans of this garbage think they're edgy and rebellious because of the profanity and overuse of the dual-standard 'bad' word "nigger'. After citing a list of white people achievements English comedian Ricky Gervaise pointed out "Hey; we (whites) invented that word, too!" I got sick of hearing it played so much from idiots who were wrongly told they were talented.

My awesome high school English teacher said there's too many better words for description than cursing. "Profanity is a crutch for the intellectually lazy and an insult to those who tried to bring them up better".

I'm offended that Martin Luther King's truly noble vision of a society where we're all judged by our qualities over our appearance has been reversed in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion - the latest push for replacing Merit and Constitution with Socialism and the inevitable Tyranny (and mass murders) that always follows.

It's obvious the evil party is in total panic over their inevitable being dragged out into the light of justice and talk openly of assassinating our guy. I ask "What do we do about that?" should they pull it off.

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