In 1987, Atlantic Starr’s ballad “Always” went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100, and it has been played at weddings ever since. Wayne Lewis, who co-founded the band with his brothers more than a decade earlier and wrote many of its songs, died on June 5, 2025. He was 68. Atlantic Starr announced his death on the group’s Facebook page. No cause was given.
The band
Lewis formed Atlantic Starr in 1976 with his brothers David and Jonathan in White Plains, New York. The group began as a large funk band and signed with A&M Records, building a following on the R&B charts in the late 1970s and early 1980s with songs that Lewis and his brothers wrote and produced. Over time they moved towards the smooth romantic ballads that became their trademark. “Secret Lovers”, a song about an affair, became the band’s first major pop hit in 1985. Two years later “Always”, a duet ballad, reached number one on both the pop and R&B charts and became one of the defining love songs of the late 1980s. The band continued to record and tour, with changing line-ups, for decades. Lewis kept his personal life largely private. He was once engaged to Barbara Weathers, who sang lead on “Secret Lovers” and “Always” with his brother David.
Atlantic Starr’s biggest songs were written to be slow-danced to, and nearly forty years after its release, “Always” is still played on R&B and adult contemporary radio.