Although they were inevitably
mistaken for Gladys Knight's Pips, The Peps were vocally more akin to The
Impressions. But pigeonholing them as another opportunistic copycat group would
be a mistake; their high-energy live performances define the 60's
all-singing-all-dancing groups that relentlessly toured the USA during that
go-go decade.
The trio turned professional
at Thelma Records around 1962, cutting a few 45s and doing background on various
sessions. Before that they were all involved in singing around
Detroit:
Ronnie Abner used to be in The Vibratones, "Little Joe" Harris sang lead on one
of Robert West's Bumble Bee label records - "Trouble In A Candy Store" - and
Tommy Hester had won talent show contests during the late 50s and sang with The
Turnpikes. Initially he was the group's lead singer and Ronnie acknowledged:
"Tommy was a singer's singer. he'd bring tears to your eyes."
They joined Mike's D-Town
setup around 1965 with a hard-earned reputation as one of the
Motor City's
liveliest acts and weren't labelled Fabulous for nothing. Back-flips, jumps,
spins and splits peppered their live shows and Ronnie explained how they
inadvertently got likened to Curtis Mayfield's seminal group:
"Tommy had the soft, high
tenor, I had the soft high tenor and Joe had the Jerry-Butler, Fred-Cash sound,
so we sounded like The Impressions. in fact our range was higher than theirs. We
do one Impressions' song a show, and the rest is us. But record-wise. everybody
wanted us to sound like The Impressions!
During their spell at Thelma
they travelled down to Dayton, Ohio where they took root for about a year and
started to develop an identity. They fine tuned their slick moves and learned
the ropes of performing while singing with Robert Ward's accomplished group, The
Ohio Untouchables. Once they were back in Detroit they continued to add
finishing touches to their routine:
"Ziggy Johnson was a
choreographer and a mentor of ours. He taught us how to put a good show together
and how to be a good nightclub-act. There was a teenage nightclub on Woodward
called The Village, and we worked there. We did everything. we MC-ed, we worked
the lights and we background all the single artists. We basically managed
ourselves. We all had our functions; Tommy was the stabilizer, Joe was about the
money, which was cool, 'cause we needed someone to be that way. My thing was
always the show; I never did care about the money. It's always been the show
with me. If we got paid: good. If we didn't paid.(shrugs). At first we started
out getting what we could, y'know - a hundred bucks a piece a week - working six
nights a week - three shows a night. We were gypsies with records. And a lot of
stuff I learned from the 50's groups, in terms of visual performance, I wouldn't
throw 'em away. Like the approach to comedy. y'know, improv's. Bang! In the
middle of a song. if you feel like telling a joke: Who cares? Do it! It got us
in to the best clubs in the city. We had the kind of show that it was hard to
come on behind us. When we would do the Apollo - with the battle of the groups -
I can only think of one other group that didn't get tired by the end of the
week, and that was The O'Jays. Everybody else, you could see the wear and tear
on them. We would get stronger. because we worked that way, constantly."
Their first D-Town 45 was a
very un-Impressions-sounding cover of "Detroit Michigan." But the next release
had a definite Curtis Mayfield ring to it, a wonderful ballad called "This I
Pray" which Ronnie wrote. According to the label his co-writer was C. Bell and
so I asked him about the ubiquitous name:
"That's Mike Hanks - trust
me!" adding, "I wrote that in the studio and we brought the Ohio Untouchables to
do that session."
The
group cut a wall-to-wall drum and bass Wheelsville 45, "Love Of My Life," that
was also released in '65. Ronnie penned and sang lead on "My Love Looks Good On
You" - their up-tempo, 1966, D-Town disc - and by then guitarist "Little
Charlie" Herndon had become an integral part of the group's act and they were
sometimes billed as The Four Peps. They gradually drifted away from Mike and
started to revolve around Pete Hall, whom Ronnie remembered sent them down to
Memphis to add some southern-soul flavor to their recordings:
"Gypsy Woman, Why Are You
Blowing My Mind - that was with Booker T and the Stax guys. That was the last
session we did."
Their version of "Gypsy Woman"
was released on Premium Stuff and another admiral cover of an Impressions'
classic, "I've Been Trying," was probably cut at the same time. This latter song
was released on the Wee 3 label in 1967 and that May they paraded it at
Detroit's famed Chit Chat Lounge where the resident Funk Brothers backed them.
But the strain of
continually being on the road was inevitably taking its toll and the group's
fraternity was paying the price. They split up and reformed a few times in the
late 60s as the waning popularity of sharp-suited, back-flipping performers was
compounded by personnel problems. It wasn't easy to adjust to the cosmic-funk
era:
"We started taking ourselves
for granted. We hurt ourselves; we didn't grow," Ronnie readily admitted. "Plus
the fact that we weren't getting along. Not Tommy and myself, me and Joe.
serious clashes! I'm hot-tempered and he's hot tempered."
They tried to reinvent
themselves by changing their name to Smoke Heat And Fire - perhaps a
subconscious reflection of Ronnie and Joe's heated arguments - and continued
gigging around Detroit.
And although Motown had periodically invited them to join Hitsville's stack of
talent, they'd steadfastly refused to sign to simply end up on the proverbial
shelf. But after almost a decade of singing together Joe eventually left in 1971
to front The Undisputed Truth, hitting the big-time with Norman Whitfield's
sublime "Smiling Faces Sometimes."
Lee's Sensation was one of
Detroit's longest-running clubs and Dee appeared there with Lee Rogers in
February 1964, still singing her Tuba song from '63. The record's flipside is
shown above.
Dee's soulful voice packed a
mighty punch pulled from a church-going childhood spent singing gospel. She
established herself as Mike's number-one female artist after leading The
Paragons on their great Exit 45 and subsequently recorded one super-sounding
Tuba single plus five D-Town discs.
Brought up on
Lawton
- conveniently close to the Pig Pen - Dee told me how her career kicked off:
"I put The Paragons
together. My brother (Albert Harrell) could sing and we were practicing around
the house, and we just formed a group. My mother lived around the corner from
Mike's studio and people were telling him that there was a girl in the
neighborhood who could really sing. And people were telling me there was a
recording studio in the neighborhood, so I walked around there one day. That was
it!
Her first, but the group's
only 45, was cut in the Pig Pen in early '63. "My Time Is Important To Me"
sounds like an improved version of The Marvelettes' 1961 hit, "Please Mr.
Postman," and Dee also shines on the slow flip, "Pretty Words." Willie Garrett,
Mike and Dave Hamilton wrote both sides and it's criminal the double-sider
wasn't a hit.
When The Paragons split up
she became a solo artist and explained how Mike christened her
Dee and coined
D-Town:
"When I first went over
there it was just MAH'S, and when we decided that we were going to record some
music - he was really crazy about my voice and all that - he looked at me and
said, 'Let's call it D-Town!' He was also trying to figure out what to call me,
because my name is Doris Edwards, and he looked at me and said, "Let's just call
you D... Dee Edwards!"
Her first tune, the lilting
"You Say You Love Me," came out on the local Tuba label - where Pete Hall worked
- in August 1963, and its catchy B-side, "Tired Of Staying Home," was later
re-released on the back a D-Town disc.
The pop-bottle-featuring,
cha-cha-esque tune, "Too Careless With My Love," was the third release on D-Town
and sold well in Detroit. "Oh What a Party" followed in 1964 and has a more
typical sixties' sound to it: handclaps accentuating a strong beat and an
abundant use of the noun baby.
"Happiness Is Where You Find It" soon followed and in the spring of '65 "His
Majesty My Love" came out. Dee's most popular 45, "All The Way Home," was
released in '66 and this raunchy song encapsulates and defines that year's
inimitable groove with its powerful beat, prominent bass and oomphing horns that
must have rattled the Pig Pen's windows.
Gracie Hanks had told me that
she used to take care of Dee's wardrobe and escort her to various gigs to make
sure the neophyte was safe. But having heard tales of Mike's gun-toting brand of
artist-management I asked Dee how she got along with the president of the
company: "He wanted to come off as a big boss; in control, but with me, I didn't
have a problem with him."
"All The Way Home" was her
last 45 with Mike as the label went the way of many others a few months later.
A couple years passed before
she recorded two songs that Sonny Sanders produced for Pete Hall's Premium Stuff
label: "I'll Shed No Tears" - a nice ballad - plus a funky-dancer, "A Girl Can't
Go By What She Hears."
"A
Girl" deserved a promotional fanfare but Pete and The Queen seemingly failed to
roll out the appropriate red carpet and consequently the record never made it.
Perhaps "Tears" was intended as the B-side, but each song was released
individually backed with the instrumental. This was at the end of 1968 and was a
sign that Pete was trying to save cash or didn't have enough material to record.
Or both. Either way, the label only had one more record after Dee's two before
Pete threw the towel in.
Dee had got married to
arranger Floyd Jones and they collaborated on some songs that Guido Marasco
released on his GM and Bumpshop labels in 1970.
"Say It Again With Feeling"
was a local success and is another example of a potential big hit subject to
proper promotion and distribution. But Floyd told me that a golden opportunity
wasn't snapped and the record faded away.
After one unsuccessful RCA
single in 1972, Floyd followed up with a well produced song that was released on
the local De-To label - "I Can Deal With That" - that Dee cut in a room above
(label owner) Dr Kyle's surgery on
Grand River Avenue.
It's a smooth, mid-tempo groover that was released with and without strings and
both versions are now collectable 70's dancers. Back then they frustratingly
flopped and the song - about turning a blind eye to her lover's infidelity - was
the last of Dee's Detroit recording sessions.
At this point the city's
heyday had long gone and the couple went to New York, finally enjoying Billboard
chart action with a Disco hit released on Cotillion in 1979: "Don't Sit Down."
Lee's real name was Roger Lee
Craton and he led The Baron's on the Soul label song.
Although he was Mike's most
prolific and successful artist, Lee Rogers is largely remembered as a
one-hit-wonder c/o "I Want You To Have Everything."
Born in Mississippi in 1939,
he was only three when his family moved to
Detroit
and had a typical upbringing of singing in church and doo-wopping on street
corners. With a voice akin to Marvin Gaye's and some early recordings that are
easily mistaken for Tamla hits, it's tempting to say Lee was an audio-facsimile
of Motown's pin-up. But he wasn't, and when interviewed by Goldmine magazine
(April 1985) he reminisced about the similarities between his and Marvin's early
45s:
"We had been good friends
since 1962 or so, after Harvey Fuqua brought Gaye to Detroit. We used to sit
around and talk; we'd laugh about it because we were such good friends. Do you
remember his first record on Tamla, "Mr. Sandman"? It came out about the same
time I had "Troubles" and it didn't do nothing in Detroit: it was just a record.
We would do record hops for Ernie Durham of WJLB - who was the first black DJ to
come through with that wham-bam style. Marvin would watch me when we did the
shows - he saw that I had something going with the kids with that beat - and
Mickey Stevenson got aware of that."
"Troubles" was Lee's first
solo record after The Barons spit up, but before that he'd recorded with The
Peppermints on Carmen Murphy's HOB label, which is how he met Mike Hanks:
"Mike was a great guy. He
reminded me of myself, so we hit it off right away. There was a sense of humor
that attracted me."
(For a sample of Mike's
offbeat brand of humor listen to "I Think About You" that Mike sang in the style
of a drunkard.)
Once The Peppermints became
The Barons, Mike arranged their "Dog Eat Dog" and "While The Cats Away." These
two sides were released on the Carmen's Soul label and the latter song credits
Roger Craton (Lee's real name) as lead singer and precipitated his solo 45,
"Troubles."
This MAH'S label
double-sider sold well around Detroit, and although "Walk On By" was the
official A-side, Detroit's radio jocks flipped it over and Roulette Records then
picked it up to give Lee's ego and career a nice boost. Its throbbing, rhythm
and blues beat is led by a rabid guitar that pushes the session forward, with
pianist Joe Hunter and sax-man Eli Fontaine following in the groove.
It was released in February
62 and there was two-year gap before Lee had another 45. By then Mike had
started D-Town, which was the vehicle for Lee's biggest hit.
His first D-Town 45 was the
moody foot-taper, "Sad Affair," which lost out big-time to Marvin's more
up-tempo "You're a Wonderful One." But later in '64 Lee got to enjoy his own
national success with "I Want You To Have Everything." This was recorded "live"
using makeshift equipment in Mickay's Records store on 14th Street,
and maybe that's why there's such a spontaneous verve running through the
grooves of the 45.
Lee toured extensively on
the back of this hit, popping back to Detroit to record his other D-Town discs
at the rudimentary Pig Pen:
"On the later recordings,
Mike would cut the tracks first and when I'd come back off the road from touring
they'd be completed and I'd overdub the vocals. They'd have a big speaker in the
room and I'd sing - we didn't use headphones - and it sounded like we had a big
band playing in the studio. There was a lot of leakage; open mikes, they picked
up the music wherever it was coming from. and it turned out real good."
"Everything" climbed to
number 17 on Billboard's R&B chart in January of '65 (lingering on the fringe of
the pop 100) and Lee followed up in April with "You're The Cream of The Crop."
This single didn't trace the same chart-ascending trajectory as "Everything" and
failed to even make the top 100. Maybe it's yet another instance of inadequate
distribution restricting a record's sales, although conspiracy theorists will
point out that its release came soon Motown scotched Mike's attempt to move on
to West Grand Boulevard.
After an attention-grabbing
guitar intro' the song snaps into catchy, I'll-Be-Doggone, hand-clapping action
- although the fates of "Cream" and "Doggone" differ in that Marvin's Tamla 45
rose to Billboard's #1 spot, his very first chart topper.
Lee justifiably felt that
more hits would come and when The Michigan Chronicle interviewed him (in April)
about his success he put it down to dedication and old-fashioned hard work:
"The only difference between
my singing now and when I was in the church is that now I do it in a more
expensive suit."
Lee's other two, '65 D-Town
releases were "Boss Love" and "You Won't Have To Wait Until Xmas," both of which
lacked a catchy melody and thus scuppered his professional momentum. The
finger-popping "Go-Go Girl" came out in '66 - shortly before the label's demise
- and by then Marvin Gaye had become established with hits like "Ain't That
Peculiar" and "One More Heartache."
After D-Town's demise, Lee
went with some of the label's other artists to Pete Hall's operation at
Wheelsville.
Lee's vibrant "Love & War"
came out later in '66 and the record's B-side - "How Are You Fixed For Love" -
was soon re-released with another powerful song, "Cracked Up Over You." This
tremendous piece of Wheelsville vinyl might have been cut in Memphis, as Lee
recalled his Premium Stuff sides were definitely recorded there, with Willie
Mitchell producing.
Willie and Lee combined well
to produce a driving beat on the Premium Stuff single, "Sock Some Love Power To
Me," and recalled:
"R&B to me always has to
have a heavy bottom. I love a heavy bass beat; when a bass line is syncopated,
then I can execute the rest of it mainly myself. I believe that's why this music
is so strong today, because the beat that I maintained."
In February 1969 "I Need
Your Love," backed with "Jack The Playboy," became the last 45 on Premium Stuff
and Lee then signed with "Diamond Jim" Riley. Two 45s - "If I Could Steal You
Away" and the funky, semi-psychedelic "Sex Appeal" - were released before Jim
was shot and killed in Watt's Club Mozambique in '72.
With the
chance of getting another Detroit recording deal drastically reduced, Lee
decided that it was time to start his own label: Soul Wheel. The only release
was his "Love Bandit," a bluesy number that Lee wrote, produced, and
subsequently sold to Loadstone Records owner Charles Stone, who added horns and
put it out on his own LA-based label. It sold reasonably well, but Marvin Gaye
was basking in his gloriously rhetorical anthem, "What's Going On," to which Lee
might have been tempted to reply, "You tell me."
Lee located to the West Coast to try his luck, but suffered a car accident
that left him with one kidney and hospitalized for months at a time.
He signed a three year contract with Motown that ended in the late 70's
without any success, after which he started his own California based D-Town
label.
The sense of deja vu was compounded by the use of Mike's 60's logo but the
venture never came close to catching the dynamism of those Detroit days.
A few 45's were released during the mid-80's including Lee's "Rocking Skates"
45, but that was his last recording.
Lee died in 1990.
The note was probably to one
of the honchos at United Artist Records, Art Talmadge, and refers to "I Think
About You"
Mike's mid 60's recordings
aren't to everyone's taste - sniffy audiophiles and fans of the Motown sound
probably find them too unsophisticated - yet they capture the authentic sound of
Detroit Soul.
One reason for a lot of
Mike's music lacking crossover appeal is that - like most back-street studios in
Detroit - he used a basic two-track recorder. Another reason is that the Pig
Pen's acoustics were brutal; plus Mike's impromptu late-night sessions
inevitably resulted in recordings that have a live and spunky spontaneity about
them.
His earlier recordings on
labels such as MAH'S and Star Maker were mostly done at United Sound's hi-tech
studio and sound cleaner; their overall quality is comparable to what Berry was
releasing in the early 60s.
Mike's latter recordings
were also nicely polished and Motown endorsed the Fantastic Four's Ric-Tic hit -
I Love You Madly - by signing the group and re-releasing the recording.
It's hard to say why
success proved so elusive. Maybe Mike's exuberance simply got the better of him.
Perhaps he could have done with someone with Smokey Robinson's ability, a
songwriting team like Holland, Dozier and Holland, or an engineer of Mike
McLean's caliber. But as Melvin Davis said, "Everything doesn't have to be
Motown," and Mike was probably happy with what he had. I can't imagine he had
any regrets.
It's
obvious from the amount of music Mike created that he was no pedant - the
following pages attest to that - although the man remains something of an
enigma. Cody Black remembered him as a great cat, Tommy of The Peps said he was
a dangerous dude, his widow called him a God-fearing cream puff and Melvin Davis
thought Mike was a frustrated musician:
"He had great ideas - 'I
wanna do this - I wanna do that.' - it's just that he needed help. He was
funny and you would have loved him. And you would have been right up his alley;
he loved to talk to somebody and tell them how he felt and all that kind of
shit. He was just looking for some kind of way to vent himself.
It was just this obsession
with Motown. Who knows what his drive would have been if it hadn't been his
hatred for Berry? And I'm sure Berry is not as great as he appears to be. People
helped him. What would he have done without James Jamerson? What would have
happened without James Jamerson? Who Knows! Berry was a very talented man in
himself, but still, he had tons and tons of great people helping him. I think he
acknowledged that, probably not to the extent he could have and should have."
Without much help, Mike
became one of the most prolific producers in Detroit during the 1960s. If you
keep clicking forward you'll find details of practically all the 45s that he was
involved with. Most of these Detroit-based discs' release dates have been
gleaned from local newspaper articles, radio station charts and other such
ephemera. If you have any surveys printed by Detroit-area stations such as CKLW,
WXYZ, WCHB and WJLB, please see if any of Mike's 45s are listed and let us know
the details. The research is ongoing.
Graham Finch
Music
: "His Majesty My Love" - Dee Edwards (D Town 1048a))
Discography
Photographs courtesy Graham
Finch
Label scans courtesy Graham
Finch, David
Flynn, Jeffrey Garbus, Rob Klein, Lars Nilsson, John Manship, Joe Moorehouse,
Carl Pellegrino, Ron Murphy, Eric Silvenis and Greg Tormo.
Acknowledgements :-
Between 1998 and 2004 I
interviewed the people listed below and would like to thank them all again for
their invaluable help in piecing together Mike's life and achievements; Ronnie
Abner of The Peps, Arthur Ashford of The Precisions, Jack Ashford, J. J. Barnes,
Jay Butler, Joe Billingslea of The Contours, Armen Boladian, Cody Black, Dr
Brockington, Frank Bryant, Hindal Butts, Don Davis, Melvin Davis, Dee Edwards,
"Sweet" James Epps of The Fantastic Four, Willie Ewing, Frank Garcia, Gracie
Hanks, Will Hatcher, Percy Hargrove, Thomas Hester of The Peps, Rosalind Holmes
& Annette Helton of The Del-Fi's, Joe Hunter, Wyline Ivey of The Elegants,
McKinley Jackson, Floyd Jones, Dr Kyle, Emanuel Laskey, Steve Mancha, Freddy
Martin of The Paragons, Tommy Martin of The Caravelles & The Paragons, Johnnie
Mae Matthews, Sam Motley, Ron Murphy - who provided a copy of his 1983 interview
with Carmen Murphy (unrelated), Gwen Owens, Pat Robinson, Rudy Robinson, Calvin
Stephenson of The Magic Tones and Mike Theodore.
