Willie Hightower hadn’t made an album since 1969. Then a phone call out of the blue led to a stunning comeback
. The gospel phenom had traveled to Hightower’s Gadsden, Alabama, hometown with his gospel group, the Soul Stirrers. Hightower, who grew up singing in church, was just a teenager when he met Cooke in the mid-late fifties, but his life would never be the same after getting to speak with the soon-to-be pop superstar “It was the thrill of my life,” he says of his meeting with his hero. “He’s been my idol ever since.
Hightower kept singing throughout his middle age, touring with a new iteration of the Drifters for roughly 15 years and later forming a family band with his five daughters, before eventually starting a real estate company. Today, he lives a quiet life taking care of his 93-year-old mother at his Gadsden home, which he purchased in the late Sixties. “There was a time when I just gave up on it,” Hightower says of his solo career. “I decided I would do something else.
Many American roots artists of the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies who remain active are far more popular overseas than at home. Hightower, who has earned a cult following in Japan and Europe after a reissue compilation of his music was released in 2004, is no exception. Nevertheless, the singer has reason to remain hopeful about his second chance on breaking through in his homeland.
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