Benny Lattimore, the soul singer, songwriter and pianist known as Latimore whose sultry baritone, coifed hair and funky songs about romance — notably “Let’s Straighten It Out” — made him an R&B fixture of the 1970s and ‘80s, died on Aug. 22 at his home in Riverview, Fla., near Tampa. He was 86.
His death was confirmed by his wife, Yvonne Lattimore.
In the 1960s, under the slightly shorn last name Benny Latimore, he worked with the Miami-based producer Henry Stone on his Blade and Dade labels to release “Rain From the Sky” and “Let’s Move and Groove Together.”
He subsequently ditched his first name and released his first album with Mr. Stone’s Glades label, the self-titled “Latimore,” in 1973. His swingy cut “(They Call It) Stormy Monday” received so much radio time in Chicago that it was later released as a single.
Writing in Blues Blast Magazine in 2017, the music journalist Bill Dahl said that recording was his revelatory introduction to Latimore. “Not only did it swing with a vengeance,” Mr. Dahl wrote, “it was by a soulful singer sporting a set of richly burnished baritone pipes who was so hip that he only needed one name.”
“Stormy Monday” jolted Latimore’s career forward, and he went on to write many of his own hits. The most successful was “Let’s Straighten It Out,” which appeared on his album “More, More, More” and topped the R&B charts in 1974. The song went, in part:
Sit yourself down girl, and talk to me And tell me what’s on your mind Don’t you keep on tellin’ me everything’s okay Cause if it was then you wouldn’t be cryin’
A masterful blend of soul and contemporary blues, it was the last song he played at shows for decades. The song was later covered by the R&B singers Monica and Usher and by entertainers like Etta James, B.B. King and Millie Jackson.
Latimore remained for several more years a part of Mr. Stone’s orbit. Of all his studio musicians, the journalist Steve Ditlea wrote in The New York Times in 1976, “keyboard player B. Latimore seems to be the one with the most wit and variety. On the ‘Latimore III’ album, tunes like the nasty ‘Keep the Home Fires Burnin,’ the seductive ‘Ladies Man,’ and the playful ‘There’s a Red‐Neck in the Soul Band’ serve to demonstrate his vocal fluency with blues motifs in updated settings.”
After working separately for years, Latimore and Mr. Stone reunited to produce some of his later albums under their joint LatStone record label, including the 2013 release “Latimore Remembers Ray Charles.” Four years later, Latimore was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.
Benny William Lattimore was born on Sept. 7, 1939, in Charleston, Tenn., to Eddie and Edna Lattimore. He grew up in a musical home: His mother played guitar and his father played banjo.
Living Blues magazine described his parents as “serious-minded, hard-working country people.” “My father said he never wanted me to have to work as hard as he did,” Latimore was quoted as saying in the magazine. “They didn’t have the chance to get an education.”
He first performed at his Baptist church, singing in the junior choir while his mother sang in the senior choir.
He gravitated to the blues naturally. “It found me,” he told WREG News Channel 3, a Memphis-based station, in 2017. “Country and blues and gospel,” he added, “they all have a kinship.”
After graduating from high school, he enrolled in Tennessee Agricultural & Industrial State College, the historically Black college now called Tennessee State University, in 1957, and joined a singing group. “I got less interested in my studies than I was in singing — that’s what I wanted to do,” he said in a 2012 video interview.
He dropped out of college to sing with a Nashville R&B combo led by the saxophonist Louis Brooks, who taught him to play piano. In the early 1960s, his quickly developing skills caught the attention of the smoky-voiced singer Joe Henderson. After Mr. Henderson had a major R&B hit with “Snap Your Fingers,” Latimore went on the road with him. He settled in Florida after a gig in Miami.
In 1971, Latimore married Yvonne Fernandez. Besides his wife, no further information on survivors was immediately available.
Latimore continued to perform into his late 70s and early 80s, his soulful voice intact even as his hair turned white.
He performed with the Roots on Jimmy Fallon’s late-night talk show in 2014 and drew crowds at festivals.
He often remembered something Mr. Brooks had taught him: “Always leave the people with a good taste in their mouth.”
“I love for the people to enjoy themselves,” Latimore told The News & Observer in 2009. “If they can leave there with a good taste in their mouth and a good sound in their ears, then that’s great.”
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