HipShakin, Reissue, 2016
vinyl condition: NM
Listen to the song.
| Barry White grew up in South Central Los Angeles listening to his mother's classical music collection and first took to the piano, emulating what he heard on the records.
White has often been credited with playing piano, at age 11, on Jesse Belvin's 1956 hit single, GOODNIGHT MY LOVE. However, in a 1995 interview with the Boston Herald, White denied writing or arranging the song. He believed the story was an exaggeration by journalists. While White and Belvin lived in the same neighborhood, Belvin was 12 years older than White.
White's voice deepened suddenly when he was 14. He recalled, "(As a child), I had a normal squeaky kid voice. Then as a teenager, that completely changed. My mother cried because she knew her baby boy had become a man."
White was jailed for four months at the age of 16 for stealing $30,000 worth of Cadillac tires. While in jail, he listened to Elvis Presley singing IT'S NOW OR NEVER on the radio, an experience he later credited with changing the course of his life.
After his release from jail, White left gang life and began a musical career at the beginning of the 1960s in singing groups. He first released TOO FAR TO TURN AROUND in 1960 as a member of The Upfronts before working for various small independent labels in Los Angeles.