Freddie Hughes

Fred Willie Hughes Jr. (20 August 1943 – 18 January 2022; Berkeley, California) was an American soul, R&B and gospel singer known professionally as Freddie Hughes. Renowned for his powerful tenor voice, which drew comparisons to Aretha Franklin, Hughes built a decades-long career as a vocalist across the Bay Area's soul and gospel scenes.

Early Life

Hughes was born in Berkeley, California, to parents who had relocated to the Bay Area from the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas in search of wartime employment. His father, Fred W. Hughes Sr., worked as a longshoreman at the Port of Oakland and later became a pastor, helping to found Oakland's Good Samaritan Church of God in Christ. His mother, Lola Mae Anderson, was a singer and missionary.

Raised in Oakland's Harbor Homes housing project, Hughes discovered his voice at Ephesian Church of God in Christ, where he was singing lead for the adult gospel choir by the age of thirteen or fourteen. He attended Oakland Technical High School but left after his sophomore year to pursue music, a path briefly interrupted when he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1965.

Career

Hughes began recording professionally in the mid-1950s, moving through a series of Bay Area vocal groups including the Markeets, the Cymbals, the Four Rivers, the Music City Soul Brothers, Casanova Two and the Ballads. His breakthrough came as a solo artist in 1968, when Wand Records released "Send My Baby Back," written by Lonnie Hewitt and Ernest Marbray, with "Where's My Baby" on the B-side. The single reached number 20 on the Billboard R&B chart and number 94 on the Hot 100, and remains his best-known recording; it was later covered by jazz trumpeter Don Ellis on his album The New Don Ellis Band Goes Underground.

Hughes also released "Natural Man" and "He's No Good" during this period, and recorded for a number of labels over his career, including Wee, Melotone, Vee-Jay, Brunswick, Ifgam and Blues Express Inc.

Along the way, he shared stages and studios with soul luminaries such as Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Etta James, and Ike and Tina Turner. In 2008, in recognition of his contribution to West Coast soul and blues, Hughes was inducted into the West Coast Blues Hall of Fame by the Bay Area Blues Society and the City of Oakland.
 

Personal Life

Though "Send My Baby Back" proved to be his only chart hit, Hughes remained a beloved and active performer in the Bay Area for the rest of his life, regularly singing at San Francisco's Royal Cuckoo, accompanied by organist Chris Burns, well into his seventies.

He was known within the community not only for his voice but for his warmth, and was a father to Derick Hughes and Derene Hughes Jones, among other children, and grandfather to a large extended family. Hughes died on 18 January 2022 in Oakland, California, at the age of 78, from complications of leukaemia and Covid-19.

He is remembered as one of the last great voices of Oakland's church-reared soul tradition, an artist whose influence on the Bay Area's musical community endured well beyond his sole hit record.
 

Current Activities

Freddie Hughes's recordings continue to be recognised by soul and R&B collectors and historians, with "Send My Baby Back" retaining its place as a touchstone of late-1960s West Coast soul.