Hank Ballard Ballard's 1969 album "You Can't Keep a Good Man Down". A 1972 single, "From the Love Side", credited to Hank Ballard and the Midnight Lighters, went to number 43 on the R&B chart. Ballard also appeared on Brown's 1972 album "Get on the Good Foot", in a track ("Recitation By Hank Ballard") that features Ballard describing Brown and the album. During the 1960s, Ballard's cousin, Florence Ballard, was a member of the Detroit girl group the Supremes. In the mid-1980s, Ballard re-formed The Midnighters and the group performed until 2002. On March 2, 2003, he died at age 75 of
Hank Ballard doo-wop group the Royals, which had previously been discovered by Johnny Otis and signed to Federal Records (a division of King Records), in Cincinnati. Ballard joined Henry Booth, Charles Sutton, Sonny Woods and Alonzo Tucker in the group, replacing previous singer Lawson Smith. The Royals released "Get It" (1953), an R&B song with possibly sexually oriented lyrics, which some radio stations refused to play, although it still made it to number 6 on the "Billboard" R&B chart. The group then changed its name to the Midnighters to avoid confusion with the "5" Royales. In 1954, Ballard wrote a song called