Nolan Frederick Porter (May 10, 1949 – February 4, 2021)[1] was an American R&B singer and songwriter[2] who recorded two albums and six singles in the early 1970s.
[3][note 1] Based in Los Angeles, Porter's first recorded song (as Nolan) was a version of Van Morrison's "Crazy Love" released on the Lizard label in 1971.
Porter also recorded "Groovin' (Out On Life)" as Frederick II on Gabriel Mekler's Vulture label and earned a small R&B hit.
The first, No Apologies, appeared in 1970 on Mekler's Lizard imprint and features songs by Steve Cropper, Booker T Jones and Randy Newman as well as Porter originals.
Reviewing in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau said: "A black singer whose idiom is rock-influenced soul (or vice versa) turns Randy Newman's 'Let's Burn Down the Cornfield' into a song about smoldering sharecropper unrest (well, sort of) and finds good ones by David Blue (well, sort of) and Booker T. Plus writing wise, witty, rocking songs of his own, songs that belong in this company, many of them about racial identity.