Belford Hendricks

Vocation

Traits

American composer, pianist, arranger, conductor and record producer, credited with arranging and composing over five thousand songs, quite possibly more than any other individual musician. He used a variety of names, including Belford Hendricks, Belford Cabell Hendricks, Belford Clifford Hendricks, Sinky Hendricks, and Bill Henry. Hendricks is primarily remembered as the co-composer of numerous soft-R&B songs of the 1950s, many in collaboration with Clyde Otis and Brook Benton, and as an accomplished arranger. His versatility allowed him to write in various styles, from big band swing for Count Basie, through blues ballads for Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan, R&B-influenced pop for Benton and country and western numbers for Nat King Cole and Al Martino, to early soul for Aretha Franklin. Hendricks arranged and conducted nearly 100 songs for Dinah Washington from February 1959 to January 1961. They enjoyed several chart hits, the most enduring being "What a Difference a Day Makes", which reached number 4 in the US Billboard R&B chart and number 8 in the US pop charts in 1959. He died on 24 September 1977, aged 68. Link to Wikipedia biography