Eva Narcissus Boyd of Bellhaven, N.C., was 15 years old in 1958 when she left her home and headed to Brooklyn. She supported herself with housekeeping and babysitting gigs. Among her employers were the songwriting team of Carole King and Gerry Goffin. Boyd could sing and King/Goffin could write hit songs. There are a few different versions of how this happened but by 1961 Boyd had become Little Eva and her rendition of the King/Goffin composition “The Loco-Motion” was a number one hit record that sold over a million copies.
Little Eva had some other hit singles, including “Keep Your Hands Off My Baby” and “Let’s Turkey Trot,” but none of the stature of “The Loco-Motion.” For about 10 years she was a popular attraction on the Motown circuit. She would later tell Chuck Darrow of the Asbury Park Press:
“’I had a ball, I had a great time.’
“Besides, she reckoned she was financially secure thanks to the expected royalties from ‘The Loco-Motion.’ In the late 1970s, she learned the truth. ‘I found out I didn’t have any income,’ she recalled. ‘I thought I’d have money to live on the rest of my life, but I didn’t. I really don’t know how it happened.
‘A lot of artists just didn’t get them (royalties). I got some, but not what I should have gotten. The record company was holding them. You just have to get a lawyer to go get them (royalties).’
“The realization ‘disgusted’ her so much that she abandoned show business. But the move was not beneficial. ‘I was living in poverty – welfare, food stamps. The only singing I did was in church.’ Adding insult to injury were several performers who were passed off by unscrupulous promoters as Little Eva.” (Asbury Park Press, Aug. 30, 1992)
“By 1971, when Boyd finally abandoned the tarnished glitter of New York to return to Eastern North Carolina, her bank account was as hollow as her crushed spirit. The following 17 years found her moving from job to job, on and off welfare, struggling to support her five children and maintain the dignity that once came so easily.
“Music had long lost its charms. ‘I could’ve gone back and kept on doing gigs, I suppose, but I didn’t care. I just didn’t want to.’
“In 1977, Boyd moved into a mobile home in Kinston to live with family members. She scored a house of her own but more money problems forced her to move to a government housing project. Her husband of more than 20 years died in 1982, and she found herself plagued by depression.” (Brian McCollum, Charlotte Observer, Sept. 16, 1994)
In 1987, an AP reporter caught up with her working at Hanzie’s Restaurant in Kinston.
“’I don’t locomote no more,’ said Eva Boyd as she wiped the counter at Hanzies Grill, a soul food restaurant here. It’s been 25 years and 50 pounds since Ms. Boyd was known as Little Eva, the girl singer of the ’60s who hit the top of the charts with one song, ‘The Loco-Motion.’
“She performed with James Brown, Sam Cooke, Diana Ross and the Supremes and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, to list a few.
“Although the fees from her performances sometimes were as high as $3,000, she said she got very little of it.
“’That’s the way it is in the business,’ she says. ‘You get in it and you get what you get and they get what they get and that’s the way it is. I was young and naive and I really didn’t know the business end.’” (AP, Aug. 16, 1987)
Susan Ladd of the Greensboro (N.C.) News and Record, interviewed her that same year (Aug. 18, 1987). She found “A plain-spoken woman with a lively sense of humor and more than her share of common sense, Eva Boyd, 43, now sings to glorify the Lord.”
But Eva Boyd was to become Little Eva once again. Her comeback is described in the Charlotte Observer story by Brian McCollum (Sept. 16, 1994).
“Boyd stayed low-profile until 1991, when she was finally talked into performing again. Her return gig took place at New Jersey’s Meadowlands, at a rock ‘n roll reunion show in front of 22,000 fans. The date was June 29, 1991- Eva Boyd’s birthday.
“‘When I walked onstage, I told everybody, ‘Good evening,’ and then I said, ‘I thank God for my talent and I thank you for … having me back out here again,’ she said.
“‘I still didn’t want to do it. But then I saw the reception, and I realized it was right.’ Boyd felt tears.
“’It was a loving reception. I hadn’t been sure the people would still love me. Emotionally, I got healed that night.’”
Stan Woodard of the Muskegon Chronicle (May 20, 1996) reviewed one of her shows.
“Fans of all ages welcomed Fabian, Little Eva and the Drifters to the Walker Arena Sunday for a history lesson in rock ‘n’ roll.
“Little Eva is energy, and she poured her heart out to covers of ‘Dancin’ In The Street,’ ‘The Twist,’ and Gary U.S. Bonds’ hit, ‘New Orleans.’
“…the audience of 3,600 went absolutely off the wall standing, clapping, and stomping their feet all the way through her best-selling effort.”
Little Eva would continue to perform until October 2001. She had been diagnosed with cervical cancer and at that point no longer had the strength to do it.
Eva Boyd passed away on April 10, 2003. She was 59. She was buried in an all-black cemetery in her hometown of Bellhaven that dated back to the 1800’s.
WRAL TV News (Raleigh, N.C.) filed this report on Nov. 8, 2008:
“A new stone marker on the grave of pop singer Little Eva, of ‘Loco-Motion’ fame, was unveiled in her hometown of Belhaven Saturday.
“A local monument maker, Quincy Edgerton, volunteered to build a marker for Eva Narcissus Boyd Harris after seeing a story on WRAL-TV about how her cemetery had fallen into disrepair. Only a rusting tin marker identified the site of her grave in Black Bottom Cemetery.
“A ceremony on Saturday unveiled the stone monument that Edgerton and his crews installed at Little Eva’s resting place.
“A locomotive, etched in the stone, roars above the carved name of ‘Little Eva’ Bishop Eva N. Harris, June 29, 1943–April 10, 2003.”
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(Note: Newspaper articles that do not include links were accessed on Newspapers.com.)
Whatever Happened To?
off the leash 
I remember her and am glad to read that she got more recognition before it was too late.
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Quite a story, and you told it well, Ken. I am glad she got to locomote again.
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It’s sad how singers of her era were taken advantage of and not properly paid, but like another commenter, I am glad she got to locomote again.
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