The
Motor City was no longer
the world's premier recording center when Mike Hanks was gunned down outside the
20 Grand in 1970. Detroit's hit-making days of the 60's had gone, and Mike's
tragic murder seemed to emphasize the fact.
Although he
produced numerous recordings and had national hits with Lee Rogers and The
Fantastic Four, Mike never got close to enjoying the kind of success that Motown
garnered with their more refined brand of Detroit Soul. The reason could be that
Mike's music was just too raw and spirited for the mass-market. Or that
providence chose to look the other way. Or maybe that
Detroit
wasn't a totally level playing field for the city's recording businesses.
It's now over thirty years
since Mike's death, yet there's been virtually nothing written about his
significant work as a songwriter, producer and recording company boss. This
tribute aims to give Mike his overdue props and attempts to de-mystify the man
behind those legendary
Detroit record labels:
D-Town and Wheelsville
USA.
And also to highlight some of the affiliated recording artists and talented
musicians that helped Mike create great music throughout that special decade:
the Sixties.
Two 45s from the late
50s. George Braxton, a local realtor, owned The Brax record label.
Mike Alonzo Hanks was born
on the 30th
of August 1929, in
Bessemer,
Alabama,
to Robert and Quentillar Hanks. His parents had seven other children and the
whole family regularly attended the
First
Baptist Church in
East Bessemer.
After graduating from high
school Mike joined the exodus to the industrial north, moving to
Detroit. He initially
worked for the city's bus company before landing a job at Ford's; but his
passion for music drew him to the city's numerous clubs and makeshift recording
studios. He met fellow musicians and singers, including former hometowner
Johnnie Mae Matthews, and like her, he also recorded for George Braxton.
Mike's first songs were
made in 1958: "Christien" and "Can I Be Your Lover Boy." The Brax record label
also credits a backing group named The Contours, but this is a female lineup,
not the Motown guys.
It's likely that
founding-Funk-Brother, Joe Hunter, played piano on these Brax recordings as Joe
told me he could remember meeting Mike in the late 50s.
"I met him about two months
after I met Berry Gordy. He came in a club where I was playing (Little Sam's),
and said to me 'You think you can play, don't ya?' I thought; who's this
gangster? But that was just his way, and he said, 'Well, let me buy you a
drink.' I worked on all his first stuff and helped him register his
publishing company (MAH'S) with
BMI."
Mike also recorded for the
local Al - Jack's label, a short-lived, end-of-decade enterprise owned by
Alonzo Tucker and Clarence Jackson, singing two more self-penned songs: "I Got A
Feeling" b/w "I Cried." These recordings have a typical late 50's pop sound,
similar in style to Little Willie John's big hit of '58, "Talk to Me, Talk to
Me."
Mike submerged deeper into
music making and tried to juggle it with his role of a working, family man with
two children: Donald and Stephanie. But something had to give, and it was his
marriage. He got divorced.
The Peppermints appeared
at the 20 Grand in August 1960 and later changed their name to The Barons. The
group included Lee Rogers, Jesse Greer and Duke Browner.
Carmen Murphy established
her House of Beauty parlour around 1948 and developed it into a well-respected
and profitable establishment. In the late 50s she ventured into the music
business when DJ-cum-singer Jack Surrell persuaded her to fund gospel
recordings. She had a piano placed in the salon's basement, converting it into a
practice room, and consequently became an unlikely pioneer of Detroit R 'n' B.
The first
secular HOB label release was made around 1959 by one of
Detroit's
premier vocal groups, The Peppermints, whose members included Lee Rogers, Jesse
Greer and Duke Browner.
By 1960 Mike and
Willie "Tony" Ewing had formed Spin Records and the label's first 45 was a
Jackson and Hanks'
composition titled "A Possibility" that Willie's group, The Twilighters,
recorded. Mike had obviously got to know Carmen Murphy, as the address printed
on their record label is her House of Beauty salon, at 111 Mack Avenue.
Around '61 The
Peppermints became The Barons and launched Carmen's Spartan label. They followed
up their moody and throbbing "I've Been Hurt" with a second 45 that had
an appropriately ironic title: "Money Don't Grow on Trees." The two discs
feature Jesse Greer on lead and sandwich one of Mike's few vocal outings, "When
True Love Comes To Be," that was later released on the MAH'S label.
About six months
later the group had a 45 on Carmen's new label: Soul. It was a Mike
Hanks' composition titled "Dog Eat Dog" and they followed this up with
"Who's in the Shack," with "While the Cat's Away" on the flip side. Mike
arranged both songs, which have Roger Craton singing lead on "Cats" and Tyrone
Douglas leading on "Shack." Tyrone would later become one of The Magictones
while Roger went solo, using the name Lee Rogers.
Mike also
co-wrote the tremendous double-sided Soul platter sung by Johnny West;
which is probably Buddy Lamp using a pseudonym. The official A-side is "Tears
Baby" - a smouldering, mid-tempo, blues-tinged number with great guitar work.
The B-side, "It Ain't Love," pounds into Rhythm-and-Blues-life after some
dramatic dialogue between "Johnny" and his love-starved girlfriend. It's a
collector's must-have 45.
There were at least two
further Soul label 45s released in 1963, but these came from an independent
Detroit
company called Soulville Productions, run by Dino Courreay.
Motown history books tell
us that Raynoma introduced Berry Gordy to Carmen and that they subsequently had
their first Jobete production released on her HOB label: "I Need You,"
recorded by Herman Griffin and The Rayber Voices.
Sometime around 1963-64
Carmen sold the "Soul" name to Berry and he used it for Motown artists like as
Jr. Walker, Gladys Knight and Jimmy Ruffin. Although Carmen had offered him the
name for free,
Berry's legal team wanted it done properly and insisted on paying for it: they
gave her a dollar.
After a handful
of 45s Carmen sold her HOB label to Scepter in New York and it continued using
it for gospel recordings, while Carmen carried on funding various Detroit record
labels.
Carmen Murphy - pictured -
funded the label.
The Taylor
Tones included Sherri Taylor, who went on to record for Motown & Gloreco. Harry
Gates was the lead singer of The Caravelles.
Mike also persuaded Carmen
to bankroll the Star Maker label in 1962 and the label's first 45 should have
been a profit maker. It's a latter-day-doo-wop number titled "Pink Lips"
which has Harry Gates leading The Caravelles with panache; and with Mike's fine
arrangement the disc deserved to sell much better than it did. It was a popular
record in Detroit
and Carmen remembers having around 5,000 copies pressed, but for some unknown
reason these weren't distributed and the disc died an expensive death.
Two other Star Maker gems
are Freddy Butler's Chuck-Jackson-sounding song, "I Told You So," and The
Deans' "Lady of the Caravan" - both of which are now sought-after
collectors' items.
Mike had a hand in writing
or arranging practically all six Star Maker 45s. Most were recorded at United
Sound during 1962 and '63, although "Lady of the Caravan" was cut at Mike's
studio at the corner of Lawton and McGraw.
Even though he was working
at Ford's he became more and more engrossed in music, almost simultaneously
releasing records on the Spin, Spartan, Soul, Serock, Star Maker, Katron, Becco,
MRC, Exit, and MAH'S labels.
Mike had started MAH'S (his
initials) in 1960 with fellow pioneer, Johnnie Mae Matthews, but their deal only
lasted a couple of discs. The label's second 45 features The Andantes - the
premier session singers at Motown. And the third and fourth releases are Mike
backed by The Del-Fi's - the group that later found fame as Martha and The
Vandellas.
At the time Mike was living
on a west-side street named
Yosemite; the address is
actually printed on a couple of the early 45s. He used the basement of a house
on Beaubien for rehearsals and auditions, and recorded about a mile away at
United Sound on Second Avenue.
It was at United that he
met Gracie, a classically trained background singer who became his second wife.
They bought a storefront property at 2828 McGraw, also on
Detroit's
west side, and an advert appeared in the 1962 Yellow Pages: B. C. Redman
Recording Studio. When I asked Gracie about "Redman" she had no idea who
he/she was, but had very cherished memories of the cozy but busy married life
she had with Mike.
"Both of us were
working other jobs. We started a record shop and a drapery shop, and used to
sell records and make drapes at night. We turned the living quarters in the back
into a recording studio and lived on Lawton, a block from the store. Mike bought
a Wurlitzer and after we were married (December 1964) he bought himself a
Hammond organ and taught himself how to play, write and transpose.
He was such an amazing
man. He was often a misunderstood man because he was thinking all the time and
he had such an expressionless face when he was thinking - most people would
think he was angry. A lot of times, because of his demeanor, he would
automatically cause people to respond to him in a very defensive manner, and as
a result it would put him in that mode too - so some individuals got to see a
very stern side of him. They never allowed him to show them his other side,
which was a cream puff. He was very warm, caring, compassionate and God-fearing.
But with the business he was very serious, because he was so sure he had a gift
to give to the world.
And he really wanted to
help the young people that wanted to participate.
music : "I Told You
So" - Freddy Butler (Starmaker 1930a)
Continued
