Bobbie Smith, Voice of the Spinners, Dies at 76

Bobbie Smith, whose mellifluous vocals helped make the Spinners one of the leading soul acts of the 1970s, died on Saturday in Orlando, Fla. He was 76. The cause was complications of pneumonia and influenza, his son Ron Smith, who plays guitar for the Spinners, said. The elder Mr. Smith had been receiving treatment for lung cancer.

Bobbie Smith was with the Spinners from their early days as a doo-wop group in Detroit to recent years on the oldies circuit. To the end, with their close harmonies, smooth choreography and matching outfits, they were the very model of an old-school rhythm-and-blues vocal ensemble.

Mr. Smith was the lead singer on the group’s first hit, “That’s What Girls Are Made For,” which reached No. 27 on the Billboard singles chart in 1961, and on three records that reached the Top 10 in the 1970s: “I’ll Be Around” (1972), “Could It Be I’m Falling in Love” (1973) and “They Just Can’t Stop It,” better known as “Games People Play” (1975). He also harmonized with Dionne Warwick on “Then Came You” (1974), a collaboration that was the Spinners’ only No. 1 hit.

Mr. Smith often shared lead vocals with Philippe Wynne, who joined the group in 1972. Typically Mr. Smith would handle the beginning of a song and Mr. Wynne would take over with gospel-style fervor toward the end.

“Bobbie took the engine from zero to 70, then Philippe took it from 70 to 150,” Thom Bell, who produced most of the Spinners’ biggest hits, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. But Mr. Smith, he added, “was the original sound throughout the entire career of the Spinners.”

Robert Steel Smith was born on April 10, 1936, in Abbeyville, Ga., and later moved with his family to Detroit.

In the mid-1950s he and his friends Henry Fambrough, Pervis Jackson, Billy Henderson and C. P. Spencer began singing together as the Domingoes. By the time they signed with the local Tri-Phi label a few years later, they had become the Spinners, a name said to have been inspired by the hubcaps on Mr. Smith’s car. (In Britain, where there already was a popular folk group by that name, they were the Detroit Spinners.)

The Spinners spent much of the 1960s under contract to Motown. But established groups like the Temptations and the Four Tops got more attention from the company, and the Spinners had only one Top 20 hit during their tenure: “It’s a Shame” (1970), produced and co-written by Stevie Wonder, on which G. C. Cameron sang lead.

They became consistent hitmakers only after they left Motown for Atlantic, where Mr. Bell became their producer and Mr. Wynne replaced Mr. Cameron as the second lead vocalist.

The Spinners, in various permutations, stayed together after the hits stopped coming in the 1980s, and despite his health problems Mr. Smith remained with them until the end; he last performed with them a month ago, Ron Smith said. Mr. Fambrough, who is still with the group, is now the only surviving member of the original lineup.

In addition to his son Ron, Mr. Smith is survived by his wife, Lorraine; his sons Lamar and Richie White; his daughter, Vanessa Smith; four grandchildren; and one great-grandson.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 22, 2013

An obituary on Thursday about the singer Bobbie Smith of the Spinners, using information from his family, misstated the number of survivors. Besides his wife and four children, Mr. Smith is survived by four grandchildren and a great-grandson — not by three grandchildren.

Source: New York Times