YEAR
1992
INDUCTED BY
Billy Joel
CATEGORY
Performers
This soul duo was a force of nature.
Sam and Dave’s work with producer Isaac Hayes and backing band Booker T and the M.G.’s made them a formidable team. Their hit “Soul Man” endures today as an R&B smash and a unifying force between black and white audiences.
HALL OF FAME
ESSAY
By Andy Schwartz
In the summer of 1964, Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records was attending a DJ convention in Miami. Florida record man Henry Stone suggested he stop in at a nightclub called the King of Hearts to check out a local singing duo known as Sam & Dave.
“It was like 165 degrees,” Wexler later told writer Rob Bowman. “It was hot and they were hot…When I heard them there that night, that was all she wrote. I signed them up immediately.”
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