Stand by Me

The walking bass line that defines "Stand by Me" came from Lloyd Trotman, the double bass player called back into the studio after a 1960 session for "Spanish Harlem" had run short. Ben E. King had written the song with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who took the shared pseudonym Elmo Glick on the credits. King had actually intended it for the Drifters, the vocal group he had sung lead for on hits like "Save the Last Dance for Me", but they passed on it. With studio time remaining, Leiber and Stoller asked if he had anything else, and King played the number for them at the piano. Stoller, recalling the writing, said he worked up the harmonies and developed the bass pattern that became the song's signature, while Stanley Applebaum later built a string arrangement on top of it.

The session also featured Romeo Penque on saxophone, Ernie Hayes on piano, Al Caiola and Charles McCracken on guitars, Phil Kraus on percussion, and Gary Chester on drums, alongside a wordless mixed chorus. King drew inspiration from "Stand by Me Father", a spiritual by Sam Cooke and J. W. Alexander recorded by the Soul Stirrers, and from Charles Albert Tindley's early twentieth-century hymn based on Psalm 46.

Released as a single in 1961, the record topped the R&B charts and reached number 4 on the Billboard chart. It did not appear on an album until 1962, when it turned up on King's Don't Play That Song!