His Voice Was a Fixture in 'Blue-Eyed Soul' Scene

If you lived in the Washington area in the 1970s and '80s, you could have heard Charlie Taylor sing almost any night. He was the robust vocalist behind one of the area's most popular Top 40 show bands, Second Coming.

At its peak, Second Coming performed 300 nights a year and was a regular attraction at such now-forgotten nightspots as the Classics III, Act IV, Ventuna 21, Montage, the Quonset Hut, Anthony House and the Cave. For a couple of years in the early 1980s, Mr. Taylor and his singing partner, Joe Saitta, even had their own club, the Second Coming in Greenbelt.

"Every night was a party, with a line out the door," Saitta recalled.

Mr. Taylor was in his teens when Second Coming was formed in 1969, and the band kept going until 2006.

"We were a soul group with hints of rock-and-roll," Saitta said. "Charlie was an amazing guy with just an incredible voice. He could hit any note out there, from the lowest to the highest."

Many people say he was the finest singer in the District's vibrant "blue-eyed soul" scene of the '60s and '70s, when predominantly white bands played a potent blend of rhythm and blues, rock and good-time party music.

"He could do James Brown, then turn around and do Frank Sinatra and then do 'Danny Boy,' " said Don Halcombe, who sang with Mr. Taylor in three bands. "He couldn't read music, but he never forgot a word and never missed a gig."

Mr. Taylor grew up in Southeast Washington, moved with his family to Prince George's County and played football at Oxon Hill High School. (He shouldn't be confused with the Washington Redskins' Hall of Fame receiver of the 1960s and '70s, Charley Taylor.)

He found his voice when, without a day of formal training, he began to sing doo-wop with neighborhood buddies on the street corners of Anacostia. Not even his family can explain where his musical gift came from.

"I don't ever remember Charlie having any interest in singing as a child," said his older sister, Roberta Payne of Raleigh, N.C.

In his teens, he joined a couple of bands, the D.C. Magnatones and the Nowheremen, that had powerful horn sections and were local counterparts to the Righteous Brothers and Blood, Sweat and Tears. The groups appeared at teen dances and at USO clubs -- and sometimes where they weren't welcome. Once, Mr. Taylor and friends were kicked off the Ellipse for singing Christmas carols too close to the White House.

"He was so shy at the beginning," Halcombe said, "but he had something that grew out of him and made him this fearless singer. Honest to God, he had the best voice I ever heard in my life."