Al Hibbler was an American baritone vocalist, who sang with Duke Ellington's orchestra before having several pop hits as a solo artist. Some of Hibbler's singing is classified as rhythm and blues, but he is best classified as a bridge between R&B and traditional pop music.
His biggest hit was "Unchained Melody" in 1955. Other hits were "He", "11th Hour Melody", "Never Turn Back", and "After the Lights Go Down Low" (all in 1956). "After the Lights Go Down Low", sung with a put-on British accent, was his last charted hit.
In the late 1950s and 1960s, Hibbler became a civil rights activist, marching with protesters and getting arrested in 1959 in New Jersey and in 1963 in Alabama. The notoriety of this activism discouraged major record labels from carrying his work, but Frank Sinatra supported him and signed him to a contract with his label, Reprise Records.
However, Hibbler made very few recordings after that, occasionally doing live appearances through the 1990s.