R&B SINGER AL GOODMAN DIES AT 67

Al Goodman, the soothing bass in the chart-topping rhythm-and-blues trio the Moments (later renamed Ray, Goodman & Brown), best known for the 1970 hit “Love on a Two-Way Street,” died on Monday at a hospital in Hackensack, N.J. He was 67 and lived in Englewood, N.J.
The cause was heart failure, his son James said.

To the intertwined falsettos of Billy Brown and Johnny Moore, Mr. Goodman set the foundation for “Two-Way Street,” a slow ballad about heartbreak. “I found love on a two-way street, and lost it on a lonely highway,” the Moments sang, all the way to No. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart and No. 3 on the pop chart.

“This is one of those transitional tight-harmony love-ballad groups from the ’60s that paved the way out of the doo-wop era to become one of the leaders of R&B for nearly two decades,” Terry Stewart, president and chief executive of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, said. “They continued in the classic soul tradition and often had a presence on both charts, as both the Moments and Ray, Goodman & Brown.”

Within months of “Two-Way Street,” their first million-seller, Mr. Moore was replaced by Harry Ray, and the Moments went on to record “All I Have,” which reached No. 9 on the R&B chart and No. 55 on the pop chart. A year later their “Sexy Mama” was No. 3 R&B and No. 17 pop.

The Moments were formed by Sylvia Robinson, a major figure in R&B history who as a young singer had been a member of the duo Mickey & Sylvia, which had a hit in 1957 with “Love Is Strange,” and who was later a founder of Sugar Hill, one of the first hip-hop labels. Ms. Robinson and her husband, Joe, were also founders of the Stang label, for which the Moments recorded. She and Bert Keyes wrote “Two-Way Street” in 1968.

Creative tensions prompted the Moments to leave Stang in 1979, but because the label owned the rights to the group’s name they became Ray, Goodman & Brown. (Mark Greene, an original member of the Moments, later reclaimed the name for a group of his own.) They signed with Polydor and soon came out with “Special Lady,” which hit No. 1 R&B and No. 5 pop.

They had many hits. “Carrying a résumé of 28 R&B and 11 pop charters as the Moments, along with nine R&B and three pop charters as Ray, Goodman & Brown, this dual-named trio left a noticeable mark on contemporary soul music,” Jay Warner wrote in “The Billboard Book of American Singing Groups.”

Willie Albert Goodman was born in Jackson, Miss., on March 30, 1943, one of seven children of Albert and Ethel Adams Goodman. Besides his son James, he is survived by his second wife, the former Henrietta Young; three brothers, Benny, Charles and Milton; three sisters, Ruthie, Gayle and Beverly; two other sons, William and Brandon; three daughters, Linda, Rhonda and Stephanie; and one grandson. His first marriage, to the former Alice Lewis, ended in divorce.

Mr. Goodman sang with an a cappella doo-wop group in high school. At 19 he moved to New York and landed a job as a sound mixer at the Robinsons’ All Platinum Studios in Englewood — his way of breaking into the business. He sang while at work, catching the attention of Ms. Robinson, and was soon chosen for the Moments.