Neal E. Boyd

Singer Neal E. Boyd's life reads like the script to a Hollywood movie, one of those movies from the 1940s when rags-to-riches was a dominant motif and believing in a dream was enough to make it happen. In Boyd's case, that's exactly what happened. Born in the rural town of Sikeston, MO, the son of an African-American father and a Caucasian mother who separated shortly after he was born, Boyd was raised, along with his younger brother, by a hard-working single mom, so money was frequently tight or nonexistent. Always overweight, Boyd had a difficult childhood socially, but his ...