Faye Adams

R&B/blues singer Faye Adams was born Faye Tuell in Newark, NJ, in 1925. As a young girl she and two of her sisters sang as The Tuell Sisters in churches in the Newark area and on a local radio station, where they were soon given their own gospel program. Faye eventually left the gospel genre for R&B and blues, and began getting jobs in New Jersey and New York nightclubs (after marrying musician Tommy Scruggs in 1942 she used the name Faye Scruggs). In 1952 she joined an R&B/blues band called Joe Morris' Blue Cavalcade, and recorded "I'm Gonna Leave You" for Atlantic Records in 1953. When the band's contract with Atlantic expired, she and Morris signed a contract with Herald Records, and she changed her name to Faye Adams. She recorded her best-known song, "Shake a Hand", for Herald in 1953, which went to #1 on the US R&B charts. Although she had a string of subsequent hits, including two more #1 songs, her career had faded by 1957. She left Herald that year and recorded for a succession of smaller labels, but none of her songs were as successful as her earlier hits. She eventually returned to New Jersey and got back into gospel music.