Jim Nabbie, Lead Tenor For Ink Spots

ATLANTA - Jim Nabbie, lead tenor for the tight-harmony vocal group the Ink Spots for 47 years, died after double heart-bypass surgery. He was 72.

Mr. Nabbie underwent surgery Friday at Georgia Baptist Hospital and died shortly after midnight Saturday.

The Ink Spots began in 1932 and founder Deek Watson brought Mr. Nabbie into the group in 1945. The group had a number of hits in the 1930s and 1940s, including "To Each His Own" and "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall."

Mr. Nabbie and the current Ink Spots had been performing about 200 shows a year, the latest in Branson, Mo., on Sept. 5. Manager Mili Della Lilley said Gregory Lee of Albuquerque, N.M., will replace Mr. Nabbie during a four-week tour of England and Europe which was scheduled to begin yesterday.

Mr. Nabbie, a Tampa, Fla., native, taught high school math for two years before moving to New York City to pursue a music career. He had lived in Atlanta's suburban College Park since 1984.

"He was a beautiful, beautiful, gentle man," Lilley said.

Survivors include his wife of 47 years, Ruth Lazarus Nabbie, and a daughter, Jarun Brown of Chesapeake, Va.