Kenny Lynch was one of the first black British entertainers to hit the mainstream, and one of the few people with a skintone darker than Des O’Connor on television in the 1960s. Born to a Barbadian Sfather and a Jamaican mother in Stepney, he was very much a traditional light entertainer. He sang, he danced, he told jokes, he acted. As with many other London-based entertainers of the 1960s, he had some gangland affiliations (he was close friends with Kray heavy Joe Pyle), but he managed some other partnerships. With his 1963 single “Misery” he began the first person to record a cover of a Beatles song, and Paul McCartney repaid the favour by putting him on the cover of Wings’ Band on the Run.
Kenny Lynch
18 March 1938 – 18 December 2019
Died aged 81 (two picks)