John Townsend

John Townsend is an Alabama-based blues and R&B singer and pianist who, as co-leader of the Sanford-Townsend Band, scored a Top Ten hit in 1976 with the song "Smoke from a Distant Fire." Influenced by classic soul and R&B artists like Otis Redding, Ray Charles, and Wilson Pickett, the Tuscaloosa native began playing in bands while still in high school, eventually forming a seven-piece group called the Rubber Band while attending the University of Alabama. Although their career wouldn't last long, their 1967 single "Let Love Come Between Us" would later become a hit for James &...