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The Knight Brothers Biography

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Richard Dunbar and James Leon Diggs comprised the Knight Brothers, a duo that recorded one of soul's most wrenching singles, "Temptation 'Bout to Get Me." Both were natives of Washington, D.C.; Diggs was born in 1937 and Dunbar on May 31, 1939. Both sang with the Starfires on two late-'50s Decca singles, while Diggs also sang with the Carltons for the Chess subsidiary Argo in 1964 and 1965. Argo released the Carltons' final release in 1965, just as the Knight Brothers' second release, "I Owe Her My Life," was released. It bombed, but the Carltons' single, "I'm a Man," did slightly better. Chess signed the Knight Brothers and the Carltons out of their New York City office. Diggs wrote both sides of their 1965 single, "Temptation 'Bout to Get Me," produced by Billy Davis. It inched to number 12 on the R&B charts, but only number 70 on the pop charts. Chess' sales department should have been ashamed for not getting the record into the pop Top 40. It was the duo's biggest seller, as they never entered the R&B Top 20 again. A follow-up single, 1966's "The Hand of Faith," did nothing. Nor did a final Checker single, "That'll Get It," and the duo lived off the laurels of one hit. The duo switched to Mercury for two singles produced by Jerry Butler's Fountain Productions. Diggs' "You're My Love" dropped without any fanfare in the fall of 1967; the association ended with "Tried So Hard to Please Her." The single flopped like the others and no more releases ever surfaced. Dunbar later sang with a revised Orioles group. ~ Andrew Hamilton, Rovi

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