Chances are you're unfamiliar with the Falcons, but they spun off their share of talent. Wilson Pickett and Eddie Floyd both got their starts with the group. The Falcons' lead, Joe Stubbs, was brother to Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops. And group alumnus Mack Rice did the original version of "Mustang Sally."
The Falcons' story begins in 1955 Detroit. The original group comprised Eddie Floyd, Bob Mandaro, Tom Shelter, Arnett Robinson, and Willie Schofield. The first Falcons were integrated as Mandaro and Shelter were white. But Mandaro soon was drafted and Shelter enlisted.
Floyd's uncle, Robert West, owned and operated the LuPine record label in Detroit, and recorded and managed the group. It was West who brought Joe Stubbs in to replace Bob Mandaro as the Falcons' lead and also brought guitarist Lance Finnie into the group. Arnett Robinson then departed and was replaced by Mack Rice. The "classic" Falcons line-up was now in place.
They recorded numerous singles for Robert West and finally struck gold with one of the first true soul records, "You're So Fine." West leased the master to United Artists, whose promotional machine pushed the single to #17 pop and #2 R&B in 1959.
In the summer of 1960, lead singer Joe Stubbs was gradually phased out of the group and was replaced by nineteen-year-old Wilson Pickett. Stubbs was in and out of the Falcons for the next three years, and went on to sing with the the Contours and the Originals. Pickett's first single with the group, the less-than-memorable "Pow! You're In Love," came out on United Artists in September of 1960.
It was in 1962 that the Pickett-led Falcons reached their pinnacle with the awe-inspiring "I Found A Love." Nothing more (or less) than a gospel song with secular lyrics, Pickett's testifying propelled the ballad to #6 R&B that spring. Not surprisingly, on the pop charts "I Found A Love" stiffed at #75. It was just too black for a year whose #1 pop hits included songs by Neil Sedaka, Bobby Vinton and Shelley Fabares.
By the spring of 1963, the Falcons' record sales had plummeted, so Eddie Floyd and Wilson Pickett embarked on their respective solo careers. After that, the Falcons essentially broke up. Robert West, however, wanted to keep the name alive, so he advised another group he managed, the Playboys, that they were now the Falcons.
This new line-up waxed some very low-tech soul, the polar opposite of what Motown was doing in the very same city. The Falcons' last charted single, "Standing On Guard," reached #29 R&B in 1967.
SOURCE: LP liner notes, The Falcons' Story, Vols.
1-3 (Relic)
RECOMMENDED CDs: You're So Fine and
I Found A Love (both on Relic)
One of soul music's great flashes in the pan was John Corley, who cut one of the truly memorable dance hits of the late '60s.
Corley was born in Greenwood, South Carolina, on April 28, 1943, and recorded for the Phil-L.A. of Soul (say it slowly) label. With Wilson Pickett's "Funky Broadway" shooting up the pop and R&B charts, Corley, a/k/a The Fantastic Johnny C, recorded a song written by his manager/producer, Jesse James (no jokes, please). "Boogaloo Down Broadway" hit #7 pop and #5 R&B just as Pickett was moving down the charts.
Johnny C managed one additional top forty pop single, with another tune built around a current dance hit--"Hitch It To The Horse." It was Corley's last entry on either chart.
SOURCE: Joel Whitburn, ibid.
RECOMMENDED
CD: Boogaloog Down Broadway (Jamie/Guyden)
If there was such a thing as "garage soul," the Five Du-Tones were among its masters. The quintet was formed at Patrick Henry High School in St. Louis in 1957, and featured Robert Hopkins (leader and founder), LeRoy Joyce, Willie Guest, Oscar Watson, and James West.
After some three years of scuffling in clubs around the St. Louis area, the Five Du-Tones knew that their opportunities to make a record were exceedingly limited in St. Louis. As a result, they moved to Chicago circa 1960. The group at that point comprised LeRoy Joyce, Willie Guest, James West, Frank McCurrey, and Andrew Butler. They stayed with Joyce’s mother, who had moved to the Windy City six months earlier, and worked odd jobs until they could get enough gigs together to support themsvles.
They went to every record label in Chicago and got turned down. Eventually, while working at a club in Phoenix (a suburb south of Chicago), they met some people from the One-derful label, who told the Five Du-Tones to come to the company’s office. They met George and Ernie Leaner, who signed them.
The group’s first record, "The Flea," came out in the summer of 1962 and sold a few copies. But it was their third single that gave the Five Du-Tones their fifteen minutes of fame. "Shake A Tail Feather" was three minutes of frantic dance music that became a smash hit in Chicago and charted nationally. It reached #51 pop and #28 R&B in Billboard during the summer of 1963. Interestingly, on the Cash Box R&B survey, "Tail Feather" shot all the way to #9.
Due to the record’s success, the Five Du-Tones toured extensively. They played the Regal in Chicago, the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C., the Paramount and the Uptown in Philadelphia, and the Apollo in New York. They group also made a long swing through the southern states during the summer of 1963.
Unfortunately, all that touring got the better of group member James West, who died of heart failure in late 1963. He was twenty-six. Selected to replace him was David Scott. Their band—Sydney "Pinchback" Lennear (guitar), Warren Haygood (drums), David Henderson (bass), and Eugene Rogers (rhythm guitar)—was picked up in Washington, D.C., when the Five Du-Tones needed a band behind them for their gig at the Howard. They established roots in Gary, Indiana, and were subsequently used in One-derful recording sessions.
The group’s next few singles were all commercial bombs. In desperation, the label had them record a close remake of "Tail Feather," called "The Cool Bird," in early 1964. It did nothing and deservedly so. "The Woodbine Twine," from early 1965, also stiffed. The Five Du-Tones’ last release, "Outside The Record Hop," came out in 1966. Shortly thereafter, One-derful dropped them.
While the group disbanded in 1967, their song has proven quite durable. Ike & Tina Turner cut their own raucous version of "Tail Feather" long about 1965, while James & Bobby Purify's version went to #25 pop and #15 R&B in 1967. Tommy James and Mitch Ryder also covered it, while Ray Charles performed the song in the 1980 movie, The Blues Brothers. And in 1988, the Five Du-Tones' original turned up in the John Waters film Hairspray.
SOURCE: Robert Pruter, Chicago
Soul
RECOMMENDED CD: The Five Du-Tones (Ring of
Stars)
These blue-eyed soul boys from Detroit initially called themselves the Flaming Embers but wisely dropped the plural. They comprised guitarist Joe Sladich, pianist Bill Ellis, bassist Jim Bugnel and drummer Jerry Plunk, and first recorded in 1968 for the Ric-Tic label.
In 1969, the Flaming Ember hooked up with the legendary production trio of Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier and Brian Holland, who had left Motown over royalty disputes. The Flaming Ember was the first act HDH produced on their Hot Wax label.
The group's first charted single, "Mind, Body and Soul," reached #26 pop in November of 1969. While it missed the R&B charts, the Flaming Ember's popularity with Black America went on to eclipse their pop success. In 1970, "Westbound #9" and "I'm Not My Brother's Keeper" peaked respectively at #15 and #12 R&B. On the pop charts, they only made it to #24 and #34.
SOURCE: Joel Whitburn, Billboard's Top Pop Singles,
1955-1993
RECOMMENDED CD: The Best of the Flaming
Ember (H-D-H)
Considering how many hot R&B producers were kicking around the south in 1969, why in god's name did the Flirtations go to England to record?
Whatever the case, the trio featured sisters Shirley and Earnestine Pearce of South Carolina and Viola Billups of Alabama. Their 1969 masterpiece, "Nothing But A Heartache," emerged from the right side of the brains of London producers Wayne Bickerton and Tony Waddington.
While it was only a modest hit stateside (#34 pop and it missed the R&B charts entirely), "Heartache" stands up as a truly masterful combination of the British Beat, Motown, and Fifth Dimension sounds. As far as I know, "Nothing But A Heartache" was and is the only chart single ever to merge those respective styles. That's reason enough to love it.
SOURCES: Joel Whitburn, ibid; Liner notes, Beg, Scream
and SHOUT! The Big Ol' Box of '60s Soul (Rhino)
RECOMMENDED
CD: Sounds Like The Flirtations (Marginal)
Sure, everybody knows "Knock On Wood," but there was a whole lot more to Eddie Floyd than that song!
He was born in Montgomery, Alabama, on June 25, 1935, but grew up in Detroit. From 1955-63, he sang with the Falcons, whose membership as of 1960 also included Wilson Pickett. Floyd and Pickett both went solo in 1963.
Two years later in Memphis, the fledgling R&B powerhouse Stax Records hired Al Bell as its first African-American executive. Bell owned a record label of his own, Safice, in Washington, D.C., and was recording Eddie Floyd when he got the job in Memphis. He offered to bring Floyd with him to Stax, where Eddie initially went to work as a songwriter. It wasn't long, however, before the label discovered his vocal talents as well.
Steve Cropper, the lead guitarist of Booker T. & The MGs and a songwriter and producer at Stax, co-wrote "Knock On Wood" with Floyd, who recorded it in 1965. However, Stax president Jim Stewart held off on releasing the single for nine months. He felt that it sounded too much like Wilson Pickett's "In The Midnight Hour," which also was written by Cropper and recorded at Stax.
When "Knock On Wood" finally came out in 1966, it reached only #28 pop but spent a week at #1 R&B that November. Floyd subsequently made a number of other fine recordings at Stax, including "Raise Your Hand," "I've Never Found A Girl (To Love Me Like You Do)," "Big Bird," and a remake of Sam Cooke's "Bring It On Home To Me." Interestingly, the latter track was Eddie Floyd's highest charting pop single, reaching #17 in 1968. But good luck trying to find it on the radio.
Floyd remained on Stax, with intermittent R&B chart success, until the label folded in 1975. After that, he turned up on Malaco.
SOURCE: Joel Whitburn, ibid; Adam White & Fred
Bronson, The Billboard Book of #1 Rhythm and Blues Hits
RECOMMENDED
CD: Knock On Wood (Rhino)
By the time Levi Stubbs, Abdul "Duke" Fakir, Lawrence Payton and Renaldo "Obie" Benson signed with Motown in 1964, they had sung together for more than a decade and were polished professionals. They also were close friends who had known each other since childhood, which was how they kept their line-up intact well into the '90s.
The quartet originally called itself the Four Aims. Following a succession of amateur contests, lawn parties and church socials, they held their first concert at a high school graduation party in their native Detroit in 1954. They later spent many years playing the "chitlin circuit."
By the time the group signed with Motown, they had changed their name to the Four Tops. Though now musical veterans, they found that signing with Motown also meant a significant change in their style and sound. The change, however, paid off. Their first single, "Baby I Need Your Loving," peaked at #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October of 1964. (The magazine had temporarily ceased the publication of its R&B chart.)
Over the next three years, the Four Tops could do no wrong. With Motown's top producers, Holland-Dozier-Holland, at the helm, the group recorded one soul classic after another--"It's The Same Old Song," "Shake Me, Wake Me," "Something About You," "Standing In The Shadows Of Love," "Ask The Lonely," "Bernadette," and the #1 smashes "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)" and "Reach Out, I'll Be There."
Their live appearances took the Four Tops to Carnegie Hall, the Copa, the Apollo, the Regal, the Coconut Grove, the Hollywood Bowl, Moulin Rouge, the Flamingo and Harrah's, not to mention TV appearances with Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson, Joey Bishop, David Frost, and Mike Douglas, along with gigs on Shindig and Hullabaloo. From 1964-67, the Four Tops were one of the hottest (and most talented) soul acts around.
Unfortunately for the group, H-D-H left Motown in 1967. After that, Berry Gordy hooked the Four Tops up with producer Ivy Jo Hunter, who seemed utterly clueless about what to do with them. Their first single of 1968 was a cover of the Left Banke's "Walk Away Renee," which made the pop and R&B top twenty but wasted the group's enormous talent. The Four Tops' next producer, Frank Wilson, also wasted the group's time and talent on white-bread drivel like "MacArthur Park," "Climb Ev'ry Mountain," "If I Were A Carpenter," and "Everybody's Talking." Small wonder the Four Tops were shut out of the top ten for the remainder of the '60s.
However, with producers Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, and later sessions with the initially clueless Frank Wilson, the group managed to produce some worthwhile singles in the early '70s, such as "Still Water," "Just Seven Numbers," and "That's The Way Nature Planned It." By the fall of 1972, however, the Four Tops were dissatisfied with Motown and moved on to Dunhill. Their debut single for the label, "Keeper of the Castle," was the group's first top ten pop hit since "Bernadette" five-and-a-half years before. They followed up with an even bigger hit, "Ain't No Woman (Like The One I Got)."
The Four Tops stayed with Dunhill for much of the '70s but entered the '80s without a record contract. However, their manager, Ron Strasner, was able to keep them working.
In the summer of 1981, Strasner met producer David Wolfert's wife, Laurie, who knew that Levi Stubbs was her husband's idol. Laurie called Wolfert into the recording studio to meet Strasner. The two hit it off, which led to Wolfert's getting the Four Tops signed to Casablanca.
The group's album Tonight! produced the single "When She Was My Girl," which went to #11 pop and #1 R&B in the fall of 1981. It was the group's first sojourn into the pop top forty since 1973. Unfortunately, it also was their last.
Lawrence Payton died on June 20, 1997. For a time, out of respect for his memory, the group shortened its name to the Tops and continued as a trio.
In 1999, Motown reissued the group's long-forgotten debut album as part of the label's Lost & Found series.
Obie Benson passed away on July 1, 2005.
SOURCE: CD liner notes (see below); Adam White & Fred
Bronson, The Billboard Book of Number One R&B Hits
RECOMMENDED
CD: The Ultimate Collection (Motown)
"Soul to me is a feeling, a lot of depth and being able to bring to the surface that which is happening inside, to make the picture clear. The song doesn't matter.... It's just the emotion, the way it affects other people."
--Aretha Franklin
Lady Soul was born in Memphis on March 25, 1942. She was the middle daughter of the Reverend C.L. Franklin and his wife Barbara. Her parents separated when Aretha was six, and her mother died a few years later.
After a brief stint in Buffalo, the reverend moved with his five children to Detroit, where he pastored the 4,500-member New Bethel Baptist Church. He also recorded for the Detroit-area record man Joe Van Battle, who leased Franklin's masters to Chess Records in Chicago. By the middle 1950s, Reverend Franklin had earned the nickname "The Man With The Million-Dollar Voice." He garnered up to $4,000 a personal appearance and released over seventy albums of his sermons.
Aretha, meanwhile, grew up alone and repressed with little emotional outlet besides the church. She joined her father's choir at eight, began singing solos at twelve, and cut a live gospel album at the New Bethel Baptist Church at fourteen. Young Aretha was an introvert who came alive only before an audience.
The reverend's church was a popular stop on the gospel road. During Aretha's childhood and teen-aged years, her father's house played host to the likes of Mahalia Jackson, Clara Ward, Marion Williams, and Sam Cooke (then with the Soul Stirrers). Aretha was so close to Miss Jackson that she called her "Aunt Mahalia." At the same time, her father kept rather intimate company with Ms. Ward.
When Aretha was about nine, the Reverend James Cleveland moved in with the Franklins and shared his collection of gospel records with the girl. It was Clara Ward, however, who made Aretha want to become a singer. By the time she was fourteen, Aretha was on the gospel road with her father.
At eighteen, Aretha decided to change over to secular music. With her father's blessing, she moved to New York City and left her two children (one a year old, the other three) in Detroit. In 1960, Aretha's manager, Jo King, got her a five-year contract with Columbia.
She remained with the label for almost seven years and recorded a bevy of material, from blues to jazz, from pop to show tunes, a tribute album to Dinah Washington, and even some early soul. Some of it worked, but quite a bit of the material simply was out of sync with Aretha's style. (For an excellent overview of her Columbia sessions, grab the two-CD collection Aretha Franklin: Jazz To Soul).
Long about 1962, Aretha married Ted White, a 31-year-old wheeler-dealer from Detroit who was not above using violence to keep his young wife in line. Not long after they were married, White replaced Jo King as Aretha's manager. In 1964, she gave birth to her third child, Theodore.
By the summer of '66, word was out that Aretha would soon be available to sign with another label. Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records cut a deal with Ted White and flew Aretha to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to record in January of 1967. The resulting single, "I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)," began Aretha's reign as the Queen of Soul. It entered the Billboard Hot 100 on March 4, 1967, and the R&B chart a week later. It reached #9 pop and spent eight weeks at #1 R&B.
April 10, 1967, saw the release of Aretha's second Atlantic single, a two-year-old Otis Redding song called "Respect." Aretha's interpretation bore precious little resemblance to Redding's original--so little, in fact, that it caused the Big O to remark, "That girl done stole my song." Once Aretha's record took off, however, his songwriters' royalty checks must have calmed Redding down. During his appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival, he called Ms. Franklin a good friend.
"Respect" spent eight weeks at #1 R&B and two weeks atop the Hot 100. Unfortunately, it was Aretha's only #1 pop hit for Atlantic. But she still spent the next several years riding the charts. Aretha's first half-decade with Atlantic produced some of the greatest soul records ever made--"Chain of Fools," "Baby I Love You," "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," "Since You've Been Gone," "Ain't No Way," "Think," "The House That Jack Built," "Call Me," "Spirit In The Dark," "Don't Play That Song," "Rock Steady," "Spanish Harlem," "Day Dreaming," "Angel".... You know them all and, if you're at this Website, you probably love them all, as well you should.
In 1972, Aretha returned to her musical roots. In Los Angeles, she gave two successive nights of gospel concerts at the church of her old friend, the Reverend James Cleveland. Atlantic was on hand to tape the shows, and released them as the Amazing Grace album. Aretha was so popular that her double LP--which obviously cost more than a single album, was composed entirely of spirituals, and produced only one minor hit single--climbed to #7 on the Billboard pop albums chart. It also introduced gospel music to a lot of people who had never heard it before.
Aretha went through a tough time following the break-up of her marriage to Ted White, but found subsequent solace first in her marriage to musician Ken Cunningham--with whom she had her fourth child, Kecalf--and later to actor Glynn Turman. In 1980, she appeared in the movie The Blues Brothers. That same year, she left Atlantic to sign with Arista.
Aretha enjoyed an admirable degree of commercial success in the ensuing years with hits like "Jump To It," "Who's Zoomin' Who," "Freeway of Love," "Jumpin' Jack Flash," and her duet with the Eurythmics, "Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves." In 1987, she became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That same year, Aretha saw her first #1 pop single in twenty years with the execrable George Michael duet, "I Knew You Were Waiting." (Who's next, Aretha? The Spice Girls?)
In 1998, Lady Soul appeared in the movie Blues Brothers 2000, and came out with the album and single "A Rose Is Still A Rose," which became her biggest hit in more than a decade. In the autumn of 1999, Aretha's autobiography, From These Roots, was published.
SOURCE: Peter Guranlick, Sweet Soul
Music
RECOMMENDED CD: The Queen of Soul (Rhino/Atlantic;
4-CD boxed set)
Erma Franklin was a pragmatist. She must have known that she would never be able to match the success of her sister Aretha--not because she lacked the talent, but because there could only be one Queen of Soul and Aretha was it. So Erma went her own way. Not only did she attend business school, she also made some fine recordings in her own right, including a Brunswick album titled Soul Sister.
She was born in 1938, four years earlier than her more famous sibling. (For more background on the Franklin family’s early years, see the Aretha bio on this page.) At age seven, Erma became a regular in her father’s choir.
While in high school in Detroit, she formed a vocal group called the Cleopatrettes. They sang R&B and soon made a name for themselves in the Detroit area, winning an all-city talent competition. Upon their graduation from high school, however, the group disbanded.
Erma spent the next two years touring the country in her father’s gospel group. At age 21, she enrolled at Clark College in Atlanta, where she majored in Business Administration. However, she continued to sing in a nightclub on the weekends. In 1967, while Aretha was earning her queen's crown, Erma was on the Shout label and made the R&B top ten with a song every classic rock fan knows--"Piece Of My Heart." That's right, folks; Erma's version pre-dated Janis Joplin's by a full year!
Although "Piece Of My Heart" was Erma Franklin's only real chart hit, she (along with her sister Carolyn) can also be heard singing background, joined by the Sweet Inspirations, on such Aretha hits as "Respect," "Baby, I Love You," and "Since You’ve Been Gone."
Erma Franklin died on September 7, 2002. She was 64.
SOURCE: Joel Whitburn, ibid.
RECOMMENDED CD:
Piece Of My Heart (Legacy/Columbia)
At first glance, MOR and Soul are polar opposites, but the Friends of Distinction managed to merge the two. And they earned three top twenty pop hits in the process.
The Friends' history overlaps with that of the Fifth Dimension, which is hardly surprising considering how similar their styles were. Both groups came from Los Angeles, while members Floyd Butler and Harry Elston came from a group called the Hi-Fi's, whose line-up had also included future Fifth Dimension mainstays Marilyn McCoo and Lamont McLemore.
The Friends, allegedly managed by NFL fullback Jim Brown, first hit the charts in the spring of 1969 with a breezy vocal version of Hugh Masekela's year-old instrumental hit, "Grazing In The Grass." It shot to #3 pop and #5 R&B and was followed by the gorgeous ballad "Going In Circles" (#13 pop, #3 R&B) and the bubble-gummish "Love Or Let Me Be Lonely" (#6 pop, #13 R&B).
The Friends of Distinction continue to perform and tour.
SOURCE: CD liner notes, Soul Hits of the '70s, Vol.
1 (Rhino)
RECOMMENDED CD: The Best of the Friends of
Distinction (RCA)