Eva Narcissus Boyd know as Little Eva was born in
Belhaven, North Carolina on June 29, 1943. She moved to the Brighton
Beach section of Brooklyn, New York ,and as a teenager, she worked as a
maid and earned extra money as a babysitter for songwriters Carole King
and Gerry Goffin. It is often claimed that Goffin and King were amused
by Boyd's individual dancing style, so they wrote "The Loco-Motion"
for her and had her record it as a demo (the record was intended for Dee
Dee Sharp). She retired from the music industry in 1971. She never owned
the rights to her recordings. Although the prevailing rumor in the 1970s
was that she had received only $50 for "The Loco-Motion," She
started performing again in 1988, and continued performing until she was
diagnosed with cervical cancer in October 2001. She died 18 months later
in Kinston, North Carolina, aged 59, on April 10, 2003. Her new grey
gravestone has the image of a steam locomotive prominently engraved on
the front and the epitaph reads: "Singing with the Angels"
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