“Like fine art, great music stays with us through the years to enjoy and to share.”

“The best act of its genre on the music scene today...”, the Bill Pinkney legacy group still reflects the entire Drifters presence in the music industry and weaves a blend of nostalgic magic with on-stage excitement.  With today’s informed nostalgia music lovers rejecting generic imitations, the group remains in demand.

Music’s Drifters represent more than the story of a single group’s success.  Changes in personnel and management have led over the years to the
sprouting of many Drifters permutations, but BILL PINKNEY used the name / mark THE ORIGINAL DRIFTERS since the 1950s, and his legacy continues.

Organizer Clyde McPhatter (Mount Lebanon Gospel Singers), BILL PINKNEY
(The Southern Knights), and Gerhardt and Andrew Thrasher (The Thrasher Wonders) met while singing gospel in 1949.  When Atlantic Records rejected McPhatter’s first group, these men joined forces, signed with the company, and established in 1953 the foundation upon which a music legacy was subsequently built.  Thirty five years later in 1988, original members MCPHATTER, PINKNEY, GERHART THRASHER and four later Drifters were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which filmed PINKNEY’s oral history for its Legends Series. 

Music Icon PINKNEY was a Negro Baseball League sandlot pitcher and a World War II Presidential Citation recipient with five Bronze Stars, a Rhythm & Blues Foundation Pioneer, and a member of the United Group Harmony Hall of Fame, Vocal Group Hall of Fame, Gospel Hall of Fame, and Beach Music Hall of Fame. 

South Carolina dedicated a Highway, a state park at his Dalzell, Sumter County birthplace, bestowed the Order of the Palmetto, its highest civilian honor, and commissioned him the State’s “Ambassador of Music and Entertainment”.  Coastal Carolina University bestowed an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree.

 “Drifters 1:  Bill Pinkney”, the autobiography, is available at www.Drifters1.com.
 
While we miss Icon BILL PINKNEY immensely, we continue his great legacy with   dignity, pride, and respect.  Visit www.OriginalDrifters.com.  We’ll see you soon!