Mike continued
collaborating with Mr. Wingate and the result was Ric-Tic’s penultimate 45, The
Fantastic Fours’ super song, “I Love You Madly.”
It was originally destined
for singer Emanuel Laskey, who told me how things evolved:
“I was working in a shoe
store and Mike Hanks saw me and said, ‘Hey, Laskey! What ya doing these days?’
I said, ‘Nothing,’ and he said, ‘Do you feel like singing? I got a couple of
tunes for ya, man!’
He took me to Mr. Wingate’s
house on Edison… he was working out of his basement. Mr. Wingate
said, ‘I like that boy, but I don’t want him to have that song. I want Sweets
(James Epps) to have it.’ So I walked to Sweet James’s house and I
almost cried when I gave it (the master tape) to him. It was a hit for me - I
knew that. The Fantastic Four were just coming off a hit record… when I heard
them do it I was I happy for them, ‘cause it was (another) hit for them.”
And so it was. It reached
Billboard’s number 12 in September ‘68.
Recorded at the Tera
Shirma’s cutting-edge studio it has a classy sound unlike Mike’s earlier,
brassy, low-fi D-Town recordings, with violins accentuating the song’s romantic
lyrics. And if you flip it over you’ll hear Floyd Jones playing trumpet on a
nice instrumental version, deftly mimicking the group’s vocal harmonies.
It was released just a
month before Mr. Wingate sold out to Motown and the behemoth immediately
re-pressed it, hoping for further sales. I imagine Mike didn’t know whether to
laugh or cry at the irony of his biggest hit being released on the Soul label,
now owned by his long-time rival and number-one-hate-figure, Berry Gordy.
After the disappointment of
missing out on “I Love You Madly” Emanuel was consoled with the offer of another
tune:
“Mike was a phenomenal
person. He said to me, ‘I got a song that’s better than that.’ I said,
‘you got to be kidding me.’ But when I heard More Love – that’s exactly
what it was. On the other side was A Letter From Vietnam, which went over
big. (DJ) Robin Seymour used to love it... he played it everyday.”
It was released in December
of ‘68 after Mike persuaded one of the Motor City’s impresarios, Armen Boladian,
to start a new record company and it became the inaugural record on Armen’s
Westbound label.
At the time The Magic Tones
were also recording at Tera Shirma but following an argument Mike asked Emanuel
to cut some songs they were scheduled to do. The outcome was a second Westbound
release titled “Never My Love,” a pop standard that’s been recorded by numerous
groups including The Four Tops, 5th Dimension, Booker T & The MGs,
and Chill Factor.
Unfortunately Emanuel’s
great version followed in the wake of Funkadelic’s hit, “I’ll Bet You,” which
after its July release eventually entered the national charts in September. The
upshot was Emanuel’s 45 got relegated to Westbound’s promotional back burner and
he didn’t even know it had been released until I recently told him. With its
wonderful string arrangement, polished production, top-notch musicianship, plus
Emanuel’s great vocal delivery, the record deserved a much better fate.
Another one of Mike’s
semi-obscure Detroit
discs is the Antone label pressing of “Pay Them No Mind,” sung by Calvin
Alexander with backing from The Soul Family. The group was formerly The
Versatones that recorded for the Magic City label in 1967. They later became
Percy and Them, recording a sweet ballad for the local Karen label in the early
70s and a great up-tempo 45 on the Roulette label. Singer Percy Hargrove
couldn’t remember when these two Antone recordings took place, but my guess is
around 1968 or ‘69.
Emanuel Laskey's "Never My Love," was released in the second
half of 1969. Mike was killed on March 20, 1970.
Mike's penchant for guns compounded by his in-your-face
authoritarian manner had led to some pretty hair-raising encounters and as
Melvin Davis told me:
"Mike carried two guns -
not just one! He used to threaten everybody, his band members. everybody. He and
I got on so well because he pulled his gun on me one day and I told him to go
ahead and shoot. I said, 'I want my fucking money! I don't give a shit if you
shoot.' That's how I felt at the time - I was a crazy young kid. He started
laughing and said, 'Melvin, you're a motherfucker!' He gave me my money
and I never had any trouble out of him anymore. Some people really had a hard
time with him because he'd take a hard line. But if you just laughed at him - it
seemed that he liked that more than anything. 'cause he'd be cussing people out
and I'd start laughing my ass off, then he'd start laughing. Then he'd say, 'Let's
finish this tune and then we'll call it a night,' and it'd end just like
that. Mike wasn't even serious when he was doing all that shit, but when people
started take him seriously, then he'd really get pissed off. He didn't like
that. y'know, if you couldn't joke around, take a joke, and talk shit and get
shit going. It seemed like he couldn't operate unless he was operating out of
chaos."
Apart from the managing
D-Town, Mike was running the Webbwood and the Stadium, plus a restaurant on the
Detroit's
Westside. And in 1970 - despite the city's social and economic problems
deteriorating since the devastating riots in '67 - he was about to open another.
By then
Detroit had one of the highest murder rates in the States: around
ten a week. In the early hours of a cold Friday morning outside the
past-its-prime 20 Grand, Mike Hanks became one of the tragic statistics after
being shot four times in the chest.
He'd driven to the
nightclub on that freezing February night to discuss business with one of his
staff. His widow, Gracie, recalled the sad prelude to her husband's death:
"The lady working there was
going to start working for him at the restaurant. He went down there that night
to tell her to come to work the next morning. When he was talking to the lady
who sold the tickets, these four gentlemen came up. They wanted to go in but
they didn't want to pay. Then they started being belligerent and my husband
said, 'Why don't you just pay or why don't you leave, because she's not going
to let you in.' One word led to another and it led into an argument, and so
the guys left. Then someone said the guys were outside. my husband was going to
leave but his friend told him, 'Don't go, it's nearly closing time, we'll all
go out together.' But my husband said, 'No, I'm not afraid - I've got a
gun.' He would not stay and when he came out the door the guys jumped him
and shot him. Then they took his gun and shot him."
That week's Michigan
Chronicle carried the sad news and Rita Griffin, the newspaper's entertainment
writer, highlighted forty-year-old Mike's achievements and informed readers that
the culprits were in police custody. Gracie was left to pick up the pieces.
Left
to right - Johnny Clapton (sax), Clifford Mack (drums), Freddy Butler (guitar),
and Rudy Robinson (organ). Ruth Adams owned a record store on 12th
Street and released Rudy's first 45 towards the end of 1962, which was recorded
Rudy became D-Town's Music
Director and Mike's right-hand man in '63. For the following few years he
juggled his roles of arranging tunes and song-writing with cracking jokes,
playing organ and bantering with Mike, often all at the same time. As Cody Black
put it: "Rudy was a genius, man."
Born in
Detroit in 1940, Rudolph "Rudy" Robinson got seriously involved in
music after he joined the army, straight out of high school:
"I found a band and played
clarinet. Then we got a jazz group and I played piano in
Germany
and Holland. I was a jazz fanatic."
He then spent a year
gigging near his Oklahoma army base before he returned to the
Motor City in '62 -
aged 21 - to hook up with a local outfit and meet wheeler-dealer Sam Motley.
"I started with Roosevelt
Fountain and the Pens of Rhythm. We had a hit called "Red Pepper." That was my
first record, when I didn't know anything about the business. I was green as a
lettuce."
Sam produced the session
and The Pens of Rhythm included guitarist Freddy Butler, who led the group on a
follow-up 45 called "Pitter Patter," released on Freddy's own M&M record label.
It was probably Freddy who introduced Rudy to Mike:
"We put the D-Town thing
together," Rudy recalled. "People were coming in the door, and Mike would sign 'em.
I was on damn near everything that came out of D-Town."
That's not a glib
generalization. He also penned many of the label's songs after giving his
instrumental "Red Pepper" some lyrics and a slight makeover to become "A
Telegram With Love" - the second D-Town release.
The top-notch musician had a
few organ-led 45s released: "Chicken Scratch" on D-Town was the first, with his
version of "I Want You To Have Every Thing" on Wheelsville followed by "The
Mustang" on Wheel City. And The Twiners' disc is probably Rudy's band too; he
wrote and arranged it.
Although Mike brought James
Jamerson and other Funk Brothers to play on some sessions, D-Town's regular
musicians were a different crew to Motown's. Drummers included Curtis Sharp,
Clifford Mack, Zach Slater, Robert Welch and Hindal Butts, with sound engineer
"Long Head Sam" also occasionally picking up the sticks. And Sam sometimes
played bass too, along with the gifted Tony Newton and Ernie Ferrell. The chief
guitarists were Freddy Butler and "Little Charlie" Herndon. Trumpet players
included Gordon Camp and Funk Brother Floyd Jones, with Johnny Clapton and Wyman
Stoudemire on sax. McKinley Jackson blew trombone as well as arrange.
But after nearly four years
the novelty of jamming at D-Town wore off and Rudy got his family doctor to fund
a new recording venture - Ram-Brock - telling me, "I wanted to do my own shit.
D-Town kinda faded away and I got into another deal with some doctors, and we
started the Ram-Brock thing."
Rudy persuaded his family
practitioner, Dr Brockington - and a few of his fellow doctors - to buy Forest
Hairston's Viney Recording studio at 11625 Dexter and started producing
sessions. This was just after the riots in July '67.
The first Ram-Brock 45 by the
Magictones was followed by Cody Black's hit - "Going, Going Gone" - and a sister
label, Lau-Reen, simultaneously released an instrumental of Rudy and his band:
The Hungry Four. They got their unconventional title from always being absent
and on the hunt for food whenever Rudy wanted them to get on stage.
Clissac was another
spin-off label that scored local success with a self-penned blues song by Joe L
Carter titled, "Please Mr. Foreman" and things were buzzing at the company. But
Mike then got involved and as Rudy bluntly put it: "He fucked it up."
Dr Brockington elaborated:
"In those days it was cheap to go into the business. half of
Detroit
was into trying to make a record. It came to an end because Mike stole this tune
from us and sold it to the UAW. It was their theme song on TV:
Please Mr. Foreman. slow down the assembly line.
No,
I don't mind working.
But
I do mind dying.
Rudy arranged countless
songs during his long career and was involved in the local New Moon and Flip-O
labels; one of his instrumentals, "Vick," was given the lyrics of Ruth Brown's "Everytime
It Rains" and soul songster Na Allen recorded it for Ronn.
But real success came later
with various Dramatic's albums, with Rudy continuing to be a gravitation point
for Detroit musicians and singers until his untimely death in 2002.
Singer-Songwriter Cody Black
was Mike's A&R man at D-Town
Industrial
Detroit
had long been a magnet for migrant workers - mainly from the polarized South -
but once Motown Records started attracting attention in the early 1960s a new
wave of migration started: singers looking for fame. Cody Black was one of the
first arrivals.
Born in
Cincinnati in 1939, Cody got an early taste of his future career at
Sid Nathan's King Records:
"My father's house was at
1760 Brewster and two blocks down the street was King Records. And I could sing,
so you know I hung out there - forever. Mr. Nathan would let me come in. since I
was twelve."
In the mid-50s Cody
harmonized with a group called The Echoes and later recorded with The Victorials,
recalling:
"I had a great group.
Johnny Pate produced us on the Imperial label. But when I came out the air force
(in 1959) it wasn't the same anymore; they had families. We started doing gigs
around Cincinnati and I met Mickey Stevenson and Clarence Paul. they were on the
same show as us. And then Smokey and them came down and that's when I knew that
I had to come to Detroit, 'cause we smoked Smokey, man. We smoked 'em. Oh, man,
we smoked 'em. Yea. we really did."
Cody drifted away from his
group and recorded a couple of solo 45s in Cincinnati - one on the Pamela label
and another on Universe. Although they both bomber he was chomping on the bit
and was soon in Detroit:
"I came here in 1962 to do
a gig with a guy, and the guy ran out with the money. So I found myself firmly
lodged in Detroit with eight dollars and fifty-four cents. And my Father had
told me: "If you get into trouble, don't call me!"
Caught between a rock and
a hard place Cody decided to make use of his Motown connection and went down to
Hitsville:
"I was greeted poorly by
that lady that was on the door there. I gave her the card and said 'Mickey
Stevenson gave me his card and told me to come here,' and she was really nasty
with me. Then she was real nasty with another guy. See, I'm a Piscean and I
don't like a boisterous attitude, so. I walked out."
Cody took a job painting
houses and after a couple of months had earned enough to buy a suit and start
sampling the city's vibrant nightlife, rubbing shoulders with music-biz people:
"I met Mike Hanks one night
at Phelps' Lounge. Bobby Bland, Patty Labelle and Al TNT Braggs was on the show.
Jockey Jack Gibson - a DJ from
Cincinnati
- saw me and introduced me to the people around, one of which was Mike Hanks.
Jockey Jack said, 'This guy can sing.' And Mike said, 'Put him on
there!' So, I got up and did a Ray Charles tune, "Drown In My Own Tears."
Mike obviously liked what
he heard - a soulful tenor - and Cody became D-Town's A&R man. Besides his job
at the Pig Pen and various duties at The Webbwood, plus gigging at clubs and
penning un-credited songs, Cody also recorded three 45s for D-Town, one on
Wheelsville and another on GIG. His "Mr. Blue" is one of the most atmospheric
and popular D-Town 45s and was sandwiched by "Chains of Love" - which J.J.
Barnes also recorded - and "Would You Let Me Know." Cody's other two records on
GIG and Wheelsville are both high-priced collectables and although none of them
were hits, Cody justifiably felt that it was just a matter of time.
"It was hustling and
bustling," he told me. "When we first got in the building (on East Grand Blvd.)
it looked like we were climbing. Rosey Greer came to the label. I think he put
some money in. Mike was a great cat. If you messed up late for a gig, or didn't
do your stuff, when pay-time came he'd fine ya. and buy himself a sweater."
During his tenure at
D-Town Cody also had the now in-demand dancer "Slowly Molding" released on his
hometown label, King, and explained how that one-off came about:
"Me and Grant (Burton) did
that on our own. Grant had the track and he had another boy singing it - but the
boy wasn't singing it, so I told him: I'll dub on the track and we'll
take it to Cincinnati and get us some money! I was broke. So we went down to
Cincinnati and I dubbed the vocal in and Sid (Nathan) gave us $7,000 a piece.
That's when me and Grant started writing together. We were a good team, man.
Rudy, Grant Burton and myself: BRB productions! I couldn't play, so I had to
whistle and hum and do everything to get Rudy to do it like I wanted it, until I
could sing my stuff with him."
But inevitably Cody started to
share the growing sense of frustration at D-Town and told me about the his move
to Ram-Brock Records:
"We all jumped ship. We
weren't getting no money. We weren't getting any releases. I was doing
background. I was gigging. But I need a little more than that. I needed
exposure. Then they brought Mike in and that was the demise of the company...
some shady stuff went down."
Before Mike Hanks got involved
at Ram-Brock Cody had three 45s in the space of 12 months, starting with a hit -
"Going, Going Gone." He co-wrote this perky number with Grant Burton and the
pair had a hand in penning other songs for the company, including the impressive
"Make Him Mine" that was superbly recorded by Gwen Owens. This Lau-Reen label 45
was naively released simultaneously with a couple of others and so wasn't given
enough promotional attention by the dinky company. Its minimal sales make it a
hard-to-find single but current demand from collectors reaffirms that it merited
much better plugging back in '67.
Cody's two other releases
include his super, should-have-been-a-second-hit, "The Night A Star Was Born."
This is another well-written collaboration with Grant that Don Davis also put
out on his Groove City label, although it didn't sell any better the second
time.
But Going's success
enabled Cody to gig for many years and was later supplemented by a moderate hit
on Capitol, titled "Stop Trying To Do What You See Your Neighbor Do." This was
one of a few songs that Cody cut in Memphis after signing with Ted White -
Aretha Franklin's husband - who'd started the Ston-Roc Company. Once that deal
went sour Cody decided to go it alone and in 1977 he launched his own label -
Detroit Renissance (sic) - that had a one-year, two-record lifespan.
As good as they sound, the
entrepreneurial days of small independents had gone and the major labels were
dictating radio play-lists. Starved of the oxygen of airplay, Cody's last two
singles were asphyxiated by the time they left the pressing plant.
Music
: "Mr Blue" - Cody Black (D Town 1057a)
Continued
