More than a dozen singers have passed through the Philadelphia soul trio the Three Degrees during a collective career lasting more than 40 years, but only Fayette Pinkney, who has died of acute respiratory failure aged 61, stayed aboard from the group's inception to their most successful period in the mid-1970s. Following Pinkney's death, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, the creators of Philadelphia International Records, where the Three Degrees enjoyed their greatest successes, praised her "very strong and soulful voice", adding that "she will truly be missed by all of us as a member of one of the world's greatest soulful female groups".
The Three Degrees were put together in Philadelphia in 1963 by the manager Richard Barrett, who had been the driving force behind such 1950s hit-makers as Little Anthony and the Imperials, and the Chantels. Pinkney was still a student at Philadelphia's Overbrook high school when she was chosen, along with Linda Turner and Shirley Poole, to be in the group's original line-up. Turner and Poole had been replaced by Helen Scott and Janet Harmon by the time the group recorded its debut single Gee Baby (I'm Sorry), on which Pinkney sang the lead vocal. Further personnel changes would later bring in Sheila Ferguson and Valerie Holiday alongside Pinkney, a line-up that became the trio's best-known incarnation.
Barrett enforced a stringent regime on his young protegees. "It's hard to grab a girl when she's, say, 17 years old and dying to go out with the fellas and go to the parties," Pinkney reflected later. "Instead of getting out of school and going to the corner shop for malts, you gotta come home because you got rehearsal."
Their early singles included I'm Gonna Need You and Look in My Eyes, but despite signing to different record labels, including Warner Bros and Neptune, a hit proved hard to come by. The trio's fortunes changed with the 1970 album Maybe, which was released on Roulette records. The title track reached No 4 in the R&B charts, and follow-up hits with I Do Take You and You're the One sent their commercial profile soaring. Their sleek live shows and tight-knit harmony singing had already established them as a successful nightclub act. When the director William Friedkin was shooting a scene at the Copacabana club in Manhattan for his rugged crime classic The French Connection, he was shown a clip of the Three Degrees performing live. He promptly included them in the film, singing Jimmy Webb's song Everybody Gets to Go to the Moon, in one of pop history's most unusual promotional sequences.
In 1973 they signed to Philadelphia International, where Gamble and Huff set about sprinkling them with their particular blend of commercial fairy-dust. They teamed the group with the studio band MFSB to record T.S.O.P (The Sound of Philadelphia), the theme tune for the popular TV music show Soul Train, and the track reached No 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. They scored a disco hit with Dirty Ol' Man, then, in summer 1974, came When Will I See You Again, which sold 2m copies and became the Three Degrees' calling card. When it topped the UK charts, they became the first all-girl group to perform this feat since the Supremes in 1964. Their success in Britain earned them an endorsement from Prince Charles, who said they were his favourite group and later invited them to sing at his 30th birthday party at Buckingham Palace.
Further success followed with Take Good Care of Yourself, but in 1976 manager Barrett took the threesome away from Philadelphia International and signed with CBS Sony, a decision not wholly endorsed by the band-members. Pinkney took the decision to leave the group to pursue further education and undertake more civic-minded roles outside the entertainment industry. Having recorded the solo album One Degree in 1979, she later served as the project co-ordinator for the Opportunities Industrialisation Centre in north Philadelphia from 1979 to 1983.
She enrolled in Temple University to study psychology and, in 1985, she was awarded a master's degree in human services at Lincoln University, Pennsylvania. She subsequently worked as an education co-ordinator at the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, and since 2001 she had been an intake counsellor at United Behavioral Health, in Philadelphia. She had not entirely given up singing, and also performed with the church group the Intermezzo Choir Ministry.
The Three Degrees - now Holiday, Scott and Cynthia Garrison - continue to tour. Pinkney is survived by her brother Nathaniel, nephew Milford and niece Michele.