Chandler is a Grammy Hall Of Fame inductee and a winner of both the National Association of Television and Radio Announcers\' (NATRA) "Producer of the Year" Award and the Rhythm and Blues Foundation\'s Pioneer Award. He is also one of a just a few singers to achieve chart successes spanning the doo-wop, rhythm and blues, soul, and disco musical eras, with some Top 40 pop and R&B chart hits between 1961 and 1986. Chandler was inducted as a performer into the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame on August 24, 2014. In 2016, he became a "Double Inductee" into the R&B Hall of Fame, having received a Special Induction as an R&B Music Pioneer.\n', '

Gene Chandler was born Eugene Drake Dixon in Chicago, Illinois, on July 6, 1937. He attended Englewood High School on Chicago\'s south side. He began performing during the early 1950s with the band The Gaytones. In 1957, he joined The Dukays, with James Lowe, Shirley Jones, Earl Edwards and Ben Broyles, soon becoming their lead singer. After his draft into the U.S. Army he returned to Chicago in 1960 and rejoined the Dukays.\n', '

The Dukays were offered a recording contract by Nat Records and recorded a single with producers Carl Davis and Bill "Bunky" Sheppard, "The Girl Is a Devil" (1961). This was followed with a session in August 1961 that resulted in four sides, most notably "Nite Owl" and "Duke of Earl". Nat Records chose to release "Nite Owl" and it became a sizeable R&B success at the end of 1961. Meanwhile, Davis and Sheppard shopped the "Duke of Earl" recording to Vee-Jay Records company, which released it in 1962 by Dixon as a solo artist with the name "Gene Chandler".\n', '

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