James Emanuel
Laskey passed away in his apartment in the lower
east side of Detroit on 23rd June,
2006 after a long battle with cancer. He was 61.
His legacy, as one
of Detroit’s finest vocalists and performers, is
assured, and he leaves a significant body of
recorded work that will maintain his memory ad
infinitum.
As a person, he was
a very special individual who will be sorely
missed and fondly remembered by all who had the
privilege to have made his acquaintance.
From the outset, he
opted to call himself Emanuel, and not his given
name James, deciding that it sounded more
‘showbiz’ and had a more attractive sound and
appeal.
While still a
teenager, he began to frequent a local east side
club where many aspiring singers and musicians
gathered. With a wistful smile of fond
recollection he reminisced about those early
days. “We all started at this club, The Village,
on Alexandrine and Seldon. Nathaniel Mayer was
there, Billy Lee (Mitch Ryder) was there, Ronnie
Abner, Tommy Stone (Storm) and Joe Harris and
myself. The Village became a very strong
starting point in Detroit for a compilation of
local artists around ’63, 64.”
It wasn’t long
before Laskey came to the attention of erstwhile
Motown star, Richard Street, and producer Don
Davis, who had aligned themselves with one of
the many fledgling record labels in the city,
Thelma’s Records.
The label was owned
and operated by the parents of Berry Gordy
Jnr.’s first wife Thelma, Robert and Hazel
Coleman who named it after their daughter. “
Thelma was the very first recording company that
I did anything with professionally. Don hadn’t
got there at that point. Richard Street was
there. Richard had his own group, the Distants,
and he’s the one who actually heard me sing –
and when he heard me he immediately told the
Colemans about me. He was playing piano for me.
It was shortly after that that Don came. When
Don Davis came in, that’s when the ball started
rolling.”
Davis began
organizing recording sessions at United Sound
Studios on Second Avenue, utilizing many of the
local session musicians who would later develop
into various strains of Detroit’s famed ‘Funk
Brothers’ and scoured the city for additional
artists, writers and producers.
Laskey is
philosophical about the rise of Gordy’s Motown
empire and the role played by all the other
smaller operations in the city. “During that
time, I think what it was, there were so many
small labels in the city of Detroit, that had it
not been for them, it would have been hard for
Motown to be a focal point. There were people at
Thelma Records, there was Correctone, Mike
Hanks’ D Town Records, Fortune …with various
artists that were just as comparable had they
had the right finances behind them. Then Motown
would have had some adequate competition.”
Producer Don Mancha,
who wrote and produced two of Laskey’s finest
Thelma recordings, ‘Peace loving man’ and ‘Sweet
lies’ agrees but goes a little further. “We had
good songs but the artists didn’t have good
management and many of the smaller labels,
including Thelma, didn’t have the contacts
across the country to allow national success. We
had talent in Detroit but really, no one knew
what they were doing compared to New York. It
was like a gold rush but everyone was learning
their craft as they went along.”
music: "Sweet
Lies" - Emanuel Laskey (Thelma 108b)
Continued
