Belford "Sinky" Hendricks

Belford "Sinky" Hendricks (b. Evansville, May 11, 1909 - d. September 24, 1977) – Arranger, songwriter, composer, conductor, pianist and producer. After graduating from the Evansville’s all-black Douglass High School (now Lincoln High School) in 1924, Hendricks took some time off from his education before enrolling at Indiana State Teachers College (now ISU) in Terre Haute, where he played piano in Paul Stewart’s band and took various other jobs to pay for his tuition. Perhaps his best paying job in the 1930s was with the U.S. Post Office. Following the completion of his college degree with majors in science and music in 1935, he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1942. In the post-war years, he returned to Indiana to care for his aging parents while he also found work performing in nightclubs. Eventually, he grew restless and relocated to New York City to pursue a music career. A major turning point in his career was becoming Clyde Otis’s assistant at Mercury Records in 1957. In collaboration with Otis and Brooke Benton, Hendricks co-wrote and arranged numerous soft R & B hits for artists such as Dinah Washington, Brook Benton himself, Sarah Vaughan, and Carmen McCrae. Of particular note, he arranged and directed the music for Washington’s All of Me (1959), which included “What a Difference a Day Made” (a Grammy award winning song that is in the Grammy Hall of Fame). He also arranged and composed for Aretha Franklin (Columbia), Nat King Cole (Capitol), and Johnny Mathis (Columbia). In the jazz realm, he contributed arrangements to Jimmie Lunceford and Count Basie.