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Bobby McClure

American soul singer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 24, 2026
Entity authorityQ4935344
Source-derived summary

Bobby McClure (April 21, 1942 – November 13, 1992) was an American soul singer.

Biography

McClure was born in Chicago, Illinois. By the age of two his family had moved to St. Louis, where he sang in church and gospel groups in his youth. He sang with The Soul Stirrers (then led by Sam Cooke) in the 1950s, and moved into secular music soon after, singing with Bobby & the Vocals, Big Daddy Jenkins, and Oliver Sain. McClure, who recorded for Checker, a subsidiary of Chess Records, scored two hit singles in the U.S. in 1965, and thereafter helped launch the careers of Little Milton and Fontella Bass; during this time he also played with Otis Clay and Shirley Brown. "Peak of Love" was a soul hit in late 1966, however it barely scraped the pop charts.

McClure moved on from music in the 1970s, working in an Illinois jail as a corrections officer, though he recorded some singles in the 1980s.

McClure suffered a brain aneurysm in 1992, and died in Los Angeles, California, of complications from a stroke soon after.

Later compilation album releases included Younger Man Blues (Shanachie, 1994) and an earlier joint album with Willie Clayton, Bobby McClure & Willie Clayton (Hi Records, 1992).

Editorial summary

“Bobby McClure” enters the record as american soul singer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Bobby, McClure and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1942, 1992, 1965, 1966—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1942-04-21. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Bobby, McClure and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Bobby McClure” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Bobby, McClure and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4935344. VIAF identifies the subject as 29728656. The Library of Congress control number is no98039057. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1942, 1992, 1965 and 1966.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Bobby McClure”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Bobby McClure primary sources, Bobby McClure archive and Bobby research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Bobby McClure”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Bobby McClure” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.