Beloved Oakland soul singer Freddie Hughes dies at age 79

While Freddie Hughes’ recording career peaked commercially with the 1968 hit “Send My Baby Back,” the Oakland singer’s impact on East Bay soul and the Bay Area music scene went much deeper than that.

Hughes, 79, died Tuesday at Kaiser Oakland from leukemia and COVID-19 complications, according his son Derick Hughes, a former Tower of Power vocalist who’s toured for years with Roberta Flack.

Held in the highest esteem by his peers during the six decades he was a pillar of the Bay Area music scene, Hughes played a central role in shaping the sound of East Bay soul during a pervasively influential era defined by church-reared Black vocalists bringing the fervent cadences of gospel music to secular settings.

An ostentatiously gifted singer as a child, Hughes was at Castlemont High School in Oakland when he started working profes