Nathaniel Mayer, R.I.P.

Nathaniel Mayer, the Detroit rock and R&B singer, died on Saturday following several months of health problems. Mayer had been a minor hitmaker in the ’60s, when his “Village of Love,” recorded with the Fabulous Twilights, hit No. 22 on the Billboard chart, and he’d recently releasing new music on Fat Possum Records with younger garage rockers like the Black Keys. (You can hear his more recent stuff on Mayer’s MySpace page.) Writing about Mayer in The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made (“Village of Love” was No. 265), Dave Marsh wrote, “Devora Brown, who owned Fortune Records with her husband Jack, swears that Nathaniel Mayer was a sweet-tempered and well-mannered young man. But on this forgotten masterpiece, he simply sounds crazed and demented, at least as unleashed as Little Richard… You want wild and bizarre, Mayer’s ‘Village’ is as good a vacation spot as you’ll find.” Mayer was 64. [Reuters]