Twin Cities soul singer Sonny Knight, who enjoyed some of his most high-profile success in his 60s, died Saturday from lung cancer. He was 69.
“I think he’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever spent time with,” said Eric Foss, drummer in Knight’s band the Lakers. “You’d spend all this time joking around with him and then he’d drop a profound – yet simple and beautiful – thing on you, whether it was musical or a pearl of wisdom from 65 years of life experience.”
A native of Jackson, Miss., Knight moved to St. Paul when he was 7. “I always liked singing,” he said in a 2014 interview with the Pioneer Press. “I grew up at the phonograph, listening to gospel music, blues, rock and roll, what have you.”
As a teen, he recorded his first single, “Tears on My Pillow,” in a Minneapolis studio. Knight couldn’t recall many of the details but said “I do remember our manager got it played on a radio station. To hear my song being played on the radio, that was amazing.”
After “Tears on My Pillow” failed to make Knight a star, he enlisted in the military and served in Korea and Vietnam. When he returned to the States, Knight found a truck-driving job and continued singing on the side. In the ’70s, he joined the Twin Cities funk band Haze and later sang with members of the R&B group the Valdons.
“I always thought of myself being a group kind of guy,” Knight said. “I wanted the dream of headlining myself, but I was just as happy with whatever was happening.”
In 2012, Foss’ reissue label Secret Stash released the “Twin Cities Funk and Soul: Lost R&B Grooves from Minneapolis/St. Paul 1964-1979” compilation. Knight’s single wasn’t on the album, but he ended up joining a band the label assembled to promote it. That led to starting the Lakers with Foss and a handful of other local musicians.
Sonny Knight and the Lakers went on to spend four years together and recorded a pair of albums and a live record with a classic soul sound reminiscent of James Brown, the Ohio Players and Donny Hathaway. In addition to playing First Avenue and other local clubs, Knight and the Lakers quickly became a fixture on the local festival scene. They also toured Europe twice, the East Coast four times, the West Coast once and made countless runs throughout the upper Midwest.
“He was an incredibly humble person,” Foss said. “Whenever someone said, ‘Wow, it’s great you got this second chance,’ he would bob and weave. ‘It’s the Lakers, it’s the band, it’s the label,’ he’d say. A lot of people in a similar situation would say, ‘It’s about time, this is what’s coming to me.’ That wasn’t his thing at all.”
Knight himself seemed pleasantly surprised by the opportunity. “I had no clue I would be doing this,” he said in 2014. “I knew (when I retired) I wasn’t going to sit around and do nothing. That’s not me. I figured I’d still be performing, just not at this level. Now that it’s here, I’m really enjoying it.”
Foss said playing with Knight made for some of the most enjoyable years of his life. “Anything I ever gave him, he gave back to me – and the band and anyone whoever saw him play – tenfold. He’s one of the most absolutely stunning, talented people I’ve not only known and performed with, but been able to watch night after night.”
Knight is survived by three children and three grandchildren. Funeral service plans are pending.
