Evelyn King (born June 29, 1960, in the Bronx, New York), is an American R&B and disco singer. Born in the Bronx and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, King was originally discovered while working as a cleaning woman in a recording studio. She went on to become one of the most popular R&B and disco singers of the late seventies and early eighties, recording classics such as "Shame" and the groundbreaking "I'm In Love" and "Love Come Down." Of King's many R&B and pop hits, she is best known for the disco-era "Shame", which is her only Top 10 on the Billboard Magazine Hot 100 (#9 in 1978). Surprisingly, "Shame" only hit #8 on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. Sales of the hit single elevated Shame to Gold record status in 1978. To close out the disco-era, King scored an additional Top 40 hit and Gold record, with "I Don't Know If It's Right" (#23 on the Billboard Hot 100) in 1979. "Shame" and "I Don't Know If It's Right" were both tracks released from her 1977 debut album Smooth Talk. King was just 16 years old when Smooth Talk was released.
Music Box, released in 1979 and Call On Me, released in 1980 were a pair of follow-up disco-R&B albums to Smooth Talk, that featured danceable tracks and soul ballads. However, her follow-up albums did not mask the same amount of success as her debut album, simply due to popular music's sudden transition from the disco craze of the late-1970s to the 1980s-dance music scene.
King hit #1 on the dance chart in 1981 with "I'm In Love" (#40 on the Billboard Hot 100) and then topped that chart again in 1982 with "Love Come Down" (#23 on the Billboard Hot 100). "I'm In Love" and "Love Come Down" were also her first pair of #1 Billboard R&B Hits. She also scored an R&B hit in the late 1980s with "Hold On to What You've Got".
Before "Champagne," King was originally known as "Bubbles."
On September 20, 2004 King's anthem record "Shame" became among the first records to be inducted into the newly formed Dance Music Hall of Fame at a ceremony held in New York's Spirit club.
