(Toronto) Eric Mercury, the Canadian singer-songwriter whose soulful voice pushed the boundaries of rock music when he debuted in 1969 with Electric Black Mandied at age 77.
Posted yesterday at 10:00 a.m.
His niece Lee Ann Mercury announced that the Toronto-born musician died Monday in Montreal after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
Eric Mercury launched his career in the late 1950s just as Toronto’s music scene was beginning to heat up with an increasing number of hot music venues.
He joined the local group The Pharaohs before rising to the front of the stage in the Soul Searchers, formation where he shared the headliner with the singer Dianne Brooks.
By the late 1960s he had moved to New York to pursue a solo career and released an energetic debut album Electric Black Man. Three more records followed in the 1970s.
Eric Mercury later joined Stevie Wonder to co-write a song for Roberta Flack, which can be heard in the drama American Hot Wax from 1978. He also lent his singing voice to the famous advertising campaign Be Like Mike of Gatorade in the early 1990s.