Singer and actor, Bill Henderson left his mark on vocal jazz with his swinging style borrowing from the blues and ballad repertoires. Born in Chicago on March 19, 1926, he began his career with pianist Ramsey Lewis in 1952, then moved to New York, where he recorded a successful vocal version of "Señor Blues" with its creator Horace Silver. One of the best-selling singles on the Blue Note label in 1958, he signed a contract with Vee Jay Records to record two albums, Bill Henderson Sings (1959), featuring the Ramsey Lewis Trio, Booker Little and Wynton Kelly, and Bill Henderson (1961), with the Eddie Higgins Quartet, the Tommy Flanagan Quartet, the Thad Jones Big Band and the Jimmy Jones Strings. A third collection of standards, Please Send Me Someone to Love, remained unpublished until 1974. Meanwhile, Bill Henderson teamed up with Oscar Peterson's trio for an album released by MGM in 1963, and signed with Verve for When My Dreamboat Comes Home (1965). In 1966, he joined the Count Basie Band for a concert released in 1995. His film and TV career was already underway when he recorded his last studio albums Street of Dreams (1979) and A Tribute to Johnny Mercer (1981). Appearing in some twenty films, including Trouble Man (1972), Get Crazy (1983) and The Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), Bill Henderson is also known for his roles in numerous TV series, including Happy Days (1974), MacGyver (1987) and Cold Case (2003). After retiring from studios and film sets, Bill Henderson died on April 3, 2016 at the age of 90.
