Ernie Hines -

Ernie Hines (1938) is an American soul singer from Mississippi who released the 1972 album Electrified on We Produce Records, a division of Stax.

Background

Ernie Hines was born Earnest Lee Pickford-Hines in 1938 in Braxton, Mississippi, and grew up in Jackson. Hines sang in school glee and choral groups and in a family quartet led by an uncle. He spent part of junior high school at Lincoln Junior High School in Duluth, Minnesota, then attended Tougaloo College on an athletic scholarship and sang in the college chorus.

Hines began guitar before a 1958 family move to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He joined the Singing Silvery Clouds, then formed the Scotlandaires, a gospel group that recorded a Sunbeam Bread radio jingle arranged by Hines for Wolf’s Bakery, his employer. Hines expanded into secular work as bassist with Slim Harpo and guitarist with Joe Valentine. Baton Rouge disc jockey Alvin “Diggie Doo” Dixon recommended Hines to L.C. Cooke, who hired him as a personal guitarist.

Hines worked on Otto Preminger’s Baton Rouge production of Hurry Sundown in summer 1966. He worked with composer Hugo Montenegro on music for the title song and coached actor Robert Hooks on guitar pantomime for the closing scene.

Roscoe Robinson brought Hines to Chicago in 1966 to record four Hines compositions for a proposed Scepter/Wand deal. Scepter/Wand declined the masters, so Hines bought them back and leased them to Chicago label USA Records, which issued “Thank You Baby (For a Love Beyond Compare)” as his 1967 debut single (b/w “We’re Gonna Party”).

Discography: