Eddie Parkins of duo Alton and Eddie has died | Entertainment

Eddie Parkins, a single 50 % of the duo Alton (Ellis) and Eddie, who, in 1960, recorded what would turn into a monster hit, ‘ Muriel’, passed away in New York past week Thursday, his lifelong mate Eric Collins verified to The Gleaner. Collins reported that the singer, who was a resident of the Caton Park Nursing Household in Brooklyn, formulated a superior fever and was rushed to the Downstate Clinic, where he died.

“He was exhibiting all the signs of coronavirus and they suspect that was the scenario, but they will have to do the needed exams in advance of the body is produced,” Collins informed. “Unfortunately, Eddie could not notify them if he was in soreness or something like that.”

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Collins past noticed his mate in August 2019, when he visited him at the nursing household, and he recalled that it was a superior stop by. “He recognised me,” he reported. “Eddie’s wife died two decades in the past and he experienced been living with household, but then he started out to leave the residence and no person would know where he was, and that was pretty traumatic. So the decision experienced to be made to set him in a nursing household,” Collins defined.

Parkins, who celebrated his seventy fifth birthday past month, was extra like household to Collins, as they each grew up alongside one another in Trench Town and savored a bond that lasted a lifetime. Rather proud of his friend’s successes, he shared with The Gleaner that Parkins, who applied to function as a fireman at the then Palisadoes Intercontinental Airport in Kingston, gained the Colgate Palmolive expertise contest in 1964 and went to New York, where he appeared on the renowned Ed Sullivan Demonstrate.

“That was just after his good results with Muriel which he and Alton recorded for Coxsone, and they did many other tracks as a duo just after that. But when this possibility came, Alton inspired Eddie to enter the competitiveness, mainly because he reported Eddie experienced relations in the US who he could keep with if he gained. Eddie at some point returned to Jamaica, but by that time Alton experienced shaped a group referred to as the Flames,” recalled Collins, whose own occupation route led him to the US in 1963 on an athletic scholarship.

Muriel was a ballad which turned a significant hit in Jamaica and in the United Kingdom, and is reported to be a single of the biggest R&B tracks ever recorded in Jamaica. Alton Ellis is quoted as expressing, “When I went to England 10 decades later on, on a tour with the Soul Sellers band, Muriel was still a significant hit there.” The duo also found good results with tracks this sort of as My Heaven, Lullabye Angel, I Know It All, I’m In no way Gonna Cry and Yours.

After a stint at the airport, Parkins joined his wife in New York, where he continued singing, this time as a solo artiste. “He did a couple of albums and was also the guide singer for a significant band, which was the most in-need band in New York at the time. Willie Lindo and Lester Sterling had been also a element of that band,” Collins reported.

Amid the albums he produced had been Very good Very good Loving and Songs Meals of Enjoy.

Parkins died leaving four small children, three boys and a single lady.

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