Soul Hawk
In ’66 ex-Golden World
Holiday Tony Hester formed a songwriting partnership with Richard “Popcorn”
Wylie, whose recording career goes back to the first days of Motown. Popcorn and
The Mohawks recorded for Berry’s fledgling company in 1961 and before that had
had a 45 on Johnnie Mae Matthews’ Northern label.
Once Popcorn hooked up with Tony Hester at Golden World, the two forged a great
partnership, penning and cutting Larry Wright’s in-demand disc “It’s Okay With
Me” and Steve Mancha’s “Friday Night” before finding success with Tommy Neal’s
“Goin’ To A Happening”. Here’s another slice of trivia: Tommy had been in The
Majestics with Johnny Mitchell, who left in ’62 to join The Four Hollidays.
Popcorn recalled his songwriting days with Tony Hester as being particularly
prolific:
“We were on production - we would write at least four songs a day. First I used
a garage behind my house at 3044 Taylor - I just had a home tape recorder and a
desk and a piano. That’s when I started Soul Hawk. We cut ‘Sweet Darling’ (sung
by Jimmy ‘Soul’ Clark) at United Sound - distribution was set up through Palmer,
because I knew a guy there.”
That first Soul Hawk release – with its Motown-quality sound - made a lot of
people in Detroit sit up and take notice, giving Popcorn’s label instant
kudos.
In ’69, Popcorn and Tony recorded The New Holidays – now including ex-Contour
Joe Billingslea - on “Maybe So Maybe No” and could sense the potential of the
hit. They opted for national exposure through Armen Boladian’s Westbound label,
which although just a few months old, had already shipped vast quantities of
Funkadelic’s “I Bet You”.
The flip side on Soul Hawk –
“If I Only Knew” - is a version of a song that Jimmy ‘Soul’ Clark had a recorded
a year earlier, but Popcorn decided to put a stronger B-side on the Westbound
release. However, it’s not The New Holidays that are singing!
Popcorn remembers “My Baby Ain’t No Play Thing” being sung by a different group
that included Willie Harvey, Bobby Martin, Herschel Hunter and guy named
Fletcher. Herschel and Bobby had been in The Martiniques in the early 1960s,
recording two 45s for the local Danceland label.
I had wondered about it being sung by The Mighty Lovers, a group that Popcorn
had recorded around the same time, but that theory lost credence when I played
the record to one of the group’s sisters, who declared it wasn’t them.
For some reason or another, the Westbound release didn’t takeoff – in fact I
have only seen “promotional” copies of this record.
The Westbound
45 has a different B-side to the Soul Hawk release and “My Baby Ain’t No Play
Thing” isn’t the same group. Jimmy Holland’s Holidays were scheduled to record
Tony Hester’s composition "The Devil Is Dope" before The Dramatics.
The cabaret gig was in June 1968.
Popcorn,
Tony and the New Holidays started working on a bunch of songs that would later
propel The Dramatics into stardom. Jimmy told me how his group missed out on
that phenomenal success:
“The Dramatics were styled after my group. “In The Rain” – we called it pain.
Several of the songs that they recorded was stuff that… ‘The Devil Is Dope’, I
have a rehearsal tape on. …We were at Tony’s house, rehearsing those songs;
scheduled to record them. Him and Popcorn Wylie had a falling out; he took his
songs and ran over to Don Davis and recorded them. And the Wee Gee thing - the
rough-tough singing - he stylized that group after us, because I was the guy
singing all the hard stuff, like Wee Gee.”
Continued
