Ron Dante

The voice behind the Archies talks about a long career singing and producing great pop music.

by Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2000 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved.

Let me know a bit about how you got started in music.

I grew up in a singing type of family. My dad sang all over the place. His brother sang, you know, just for their own enjoyment… at weddings and things. But there was a lot of singing going on in our home. My dad was a big pop music fan. He had all the latest 78s of the hit records of the fifties. So I would listen to all of his records and see him enjoying it and I think I just naturally gravitated to singing. When I was about eleven, I broke my arm, and I needed an exercise for my wrist. The doctor recommended a guitar, because I was a big Elvis fan. I started to play, and before you knew it I was singing with my guitar and writing songs.

Your first hit was "Leader of the Laundromat," a parody of the girl-group classic "Leader of the Pack," which you did with a band you called the Detergents. How did that come about?

Two of my friends, Danny Jordan and Tommy Wynn, we were all staff writers at Don Kirshner’s publishing company. Danny’s uncle was a guy named Paul Vance, who was a very successful songwriter in the fifties and sixties. He wrote "Catch a Falling Star" for Perry Como. He wrote "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" for Brian Hyland. He was very talented. He came up with this idea to do a parody of "Leader of the Pack." He asked Danny to bring in a couple of friends. Danny and I blew on over and we ended up singing on this parody. It became a career for a couple of years. We went out and toured on the Dick Clark Caravan of Stars singing "Leader of the Laundromat."

Do you remember the first time that you heard your music, on the radio or in a club or something like that? What happened, and what was it like?

Actually, I recorded for Paul Vance as a solo artist in 1964-1965. (I did) a song called "Don’t Stand Up In A Canoe" which was kind of an "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" type of record. I remember hearing it on the big New York station one day. For a week they played it or two weeks. It was the culmination of my whole career, to hear myself on the radio. That’s what I wanted all my life.

You did a lot of songwriting for Don Kirshner. What were some of the hits that you wrote for other musicians?

To tell you the truth, I was never a hit songwriter. I became a hit singer, and hit producer, but my songwriting… it’s very tough to become a hit songwriter. It takes a lot of luck and pizzazz and a lot of connections, and at that point in my career I was more of a singer and performer than I was a writer. But I did sign to his company and I wrote songs for Jay and the Americans, Johnny Mathis, the McCoys, James Darren, Gary Lewis and the Playboys. Gene Pitney recorded my songs. Bobby Vee. All these great sixties artists. I got a lot of my songs recorded. It was a very wonderful time because I got to meet all the artists that I was such a big fan of. But really, the songwriting was a means to an end for me, to get my voice on record and to become a hit singer. That’s really what I was after.

Then came the Archies. How did you get involved doing music for the show, and how did it feel to be known as the voice for a cartoon?

It was a great gift at the time. I was a studio singer. I had developed into a singer of commercials. So I did tons of jingles. Every week I would do ten or fifteen commercials. I did backgrounds for all the record companies that were doing their records in New York City at the time. When I heard about the Archies sessions, a friend of mine was playing on it. He said they don’t have the voice of Archie yet. They don’t have the lead voice for all this music they’re doing for this new TV series based on the cartoon. I went up and auditioned for my old friend Don Kirshner, who was the music supervisor. My other buddy, Jeff Barry, was the line producer. I kind of gave them a few different sounds, and they locked into one specific sound that I made and said you’ll be the voice of Archie. I knew it would get a big push, because Don Kirshner was like PT Barnum. He could promote anything. It became the number one show in its timeslot. We did two songs a show, plus the theme. So I got to hear my voice every Saturday morning. The records got really big promotion from Kirshner and… at the time… RCA Records.

VH-1 Classic has been showing a video of you performing "Sugar Sugar" in the 70s. Do you know where that came from?

I think that came from a Cleveland show Upbeat. I think I did that for them. Or, I did the Larry Kane show in Houston, Texas. One of those two shows. They were teen shows that played music, and I remember going to the show and singing "Sugar Sugar" four or five times, playing different instruments. I never saw the composite they put together, but obviously they put one together of me and it looks like there are like four or five of me in the band. I did it in about 1970, and it was a real kick to do that and I love that video. I think it looks amazing.

Pop singer Ken Sharp just recorded "Melody Hill" with Carnie Wilson on backing vocals, and Jellyfish used to play "Sugar & Spice" live. How does it feel to hear other people redoing your songs?

It’s fine. It’s a kind of bittersweet thing to hear your songs, the things you made famous, recorded by other people. It’s interesting to see their take on the vocals. I’ve heard four or five versions of "Sugar Sugar" over the years, and it’s always interesting to me. I thought that there was obviously only one way to sing it. Yet, when I heard Wilson Pickett’s version, or Andy Kim had a version, Tommy Roe had a version, and they were all very different. Everybody has a different vocal take on it. Honestly, I think I caught the best version of it. (Laughs) I just got the generic feel for it. I was the first one to record the song and I think I was the right voice at the right time for that song.

The Archies music has never really come out on CD in any decent compilations, I have an old CD called 20 Greatest Hits that only has ten songs on it and has a really bad, obviously fake drawing of the Archies on it. Everything else in the world seems to come out on CD, why has it been so hard to get good Archies disks, and is that going to change?

Yes, there are many plans. There has been a rights battle over the years between Archie comic book people and Don Kirshner and the Filmation people, who had the original cartoon. Nobody was really sure who had the right. Lately, I think they’ve come around. Fuel 2000 is a record label and they put out Absolutely the Best of the Archies. I hear that’s a pretty good compilation. A company called RKO Unique has put out two versions of Archies albums with my picture on the cover. If you’re ever on the Internet you can check them out. They’re in the stores too. They’re pretty good, they’re the original Jingle Jangle album and the original Everything’s Archie album. There are plans to put out the final three or four albums that I did through RKO Unique/Boardwalk. They just bought the Boardwalk label. Look for that.

Your next band was the Cuff Links, and despite the fact that you were a one-man band, the record label made up extensive fake bios for a whole group. Whose idea was that and how did you feel about it that they were trying to make them out to be someone other than you?

I didn’t mind it at all. I did the deal… it was with Paul Vance again. The "Laundromat" guy. He came up with this song "Tracy." He called me when the Archies were really taking off. He said would you do me a favor? Come in and sing this song. He said it had to be a song I liked. I listened to "Tracy" and I just loved the song. So I said, if it does become I hit, I’ll do an entire album, because I’d love to sing an entire album of your songs. Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss songs. There were two songwriters and producers on it. Sure enough, "Tracy" took off and sold like 900,000 copies at the time. So I did do the album. I didn’t pay too much attention, I didn’t know they put together a group and sent it on the road. By the time I found out, it was already old news. I was very happy to have "Tracy" out at the time, because "Sugar Sugar" and "Tracy" were both in the top 10 at the same time. That was a great feeling to know that I'd spent my early years trying to get hit records and now I had two. Unfortunately, my name wasn’t on either one. So again, it was a double-edged sword. God gave me what I wanted, but not quite the way I wanted it.

I could never understand how "Early in the Morning" didn’t become a smash hit. I know Gene Pitney released it as a single, but it didn’t do too well. Was the Cuff Links version released as a single?

No, we didn’t release it. Girl names were very popular with the Cuff Links. We released "Tracy,"
"When Julie Comes Around"…

That’s a great song too…

… then "Run Sally Run."

"Tracy" was used on Ally McBeal a couple of years ago. What did you think of that?

It was the coolest thing in the world. Because Ally McBeal was one of the top 10 shows in the country. Everybody watched it at some point. So to have my voice singing behind Tracey Ullman’s guest appearance was a real, real kick. I can’t tell you how many e-mails and phone calls I got over that play. It was a great thing. It really brought me up to this generation, too, with "Tracy." Now when I sing "Tracy" at these concerts and summer fairs that I’ll be doing, a lot of people watched Ally McBeal and know that song.

Again, with the exception of a few singles, the Cuff Links work is hard to find on CD. Have you ever discussed with a label like Varese Vintage the idea of releasing the two Cuff Link albums as a single CD, or maybe doing a Best of CD that collects songs from all of your bands and solo work, like the Tony Burrows CD?

Nobody’s talked to me about that lately. I know you can buy a version of it from Japan on Amazon.com. But nobody’s talked to me about putting out the Cuff Links album, which is a very good idea, actually.

Did you ever want to make any of those bands a fulltime gig, or were you enjoying the variety of playing in all different situations with different people?

They offered me the job of doing the Archies after we had it. But it was more of a cartoon children’s thing. I was hoping to become more of an Elton John type of guy. Somebody with a little more credibility than the cartoon group… the preteen and the teen market. So I didn’t jump at the opportunity. It never crossed my mind. I segued from singing commercials to doing these pop records, and then I segued into production. All through the seventies and early eighties, most of my time was spent producing other people. Also, I was living in New York City, I was married, I really wanted to have a family, so I didn’t want to go on the road much. I chose an occupation that kept me in the studios of New York, instead of on the road in the middle of the country.

Speaking of the teen marketing, a friend of mine has a very strong childhood memory of reading a little thing in Archie Comics about you that read, "Girls, he’s a real ladies man. And boys, he’s a real he-man." Did you ever think it was weird the way you were marketed?

I thought that was horrible. I really didn’t think that was an appropriate approach for me. The people who were doing these things, I didn’t even know they were doing them. People were just taking my picture and putting words under them. In 16 magazine they put down stories about my likes and dislikes that had nothing to do with me. But, that’s part of the machinery. Once it gets going, it has a life of its own. You have to take the good and the bad. The good part of it is that a lot of people get to know you. The bad part is that they don’t get the real facts. You don’t get the real image of who I am and who I was. But, all in all, I’d do it again.

In the early seventies after all of those hits, you recorded a lot as a solo act, but except for a minor hit with "Let Me Bring You Up" the solo stuff didn't really take off. Why do you think that may have been?

I just think my focus was not on being an artist after the first couple of albums I did solo. I segued back into singing commercials regularly, every day, and producing other people.

What were some of the commercial jingles that you did?

I sang for McDonalds. I sang on the huge Coke commercial on the top of the mountain, "I’d Like To Teach the World To Sing." I was the voice of Campbell’s Soup, General Tires. I was the voice of Tang. I must have done over a thousand commercials in my career. Everything you can name I probably sung once. Or twice. I’ve done a dozen of those McDonalds’ commercials. Dr. Pepper, I was the voice of "I’m A Pepper, You’re a Pepper."

I saw on the internet that you also recorded the "Spiderman Theme" which I had never heard before. Was that really you?

Yes, but it really was the theme for a record called Spiderman. Which is Tales from Beyond, or something like that. It was a radio show on record with four or five songs that I was the voice of Spiderman on.

I know of about eight bands that you recorded with. Do you have any idea how many there have been totally?

You know, I’ve forgotten over the years. Because, a lot of the stuff I did, people put out on me without me even knowing. I would go into the studio, take a flat fee and let them put the records out. I know of about fifteen. I’d bet there’s about thirty groups that I was over the years. Most of them, they renamed my groups, so whatever they said they were going to call it, they didn’t call it. People put out my demos, I was a big demos singer for all the songwriters in New York City. Sometimes the demos were better than the final records that they put out. So they put out my demos and they called it a group name.

By the early seventies, you had moved from being a pure performer into production. Your best-known work was probably with a then unknown pianist named Barry Manilow. How did you hook up with him, and what were the years working with him at the height of his popularity like?

Barry and I met doing a commercial. On that session singing were myself, Barry Manilow, Melissa Manchester and Valerie Simpson from Ashford and Simpson. It was a really good group. Barry and I hit it off. He knew of my credits and he told me he was working with a new artist that was just putting out some records, Bette Midler. I’d just seen her the night before on The Tonight Show. I thought she was going to be a big star. I said, let me hear some of your songs. So in the following days, we got together and he played me some of his songs. I felt I could make him a star. I just knew it. I had the contacts, I had the talent to get his voice on tape. We went in and did the first demos he really did under his own name. I got him the record deal and about a year and a half later we had "Mandy." We worked together until about 1981. About six-seven years, we did ten albums. Those years were great years. Easy… just the happiest years recording in the studio. It’s just a pleasure to work with the guy. He’s a real professional. Easy going and a really good singer.

You have also produced people like Pat Benatar and Cher. What did you do with them, and who else have you worked with?

With Benatar, the record company brought me to her because she was singing in nightclubs in New York City and she was doing big ballads. They asked me to go down and take a look at her. I looked at her and I said I think I can turn her into a rock and roll singer. I took her into the studio and I recorded a song called "Heartbreaker" and another song called "You Better Run." I even did another song on that tape, an old Roy Orbison song called "Crying." Which consequently somebody else and had a hit with…

Right, Don McLean…

Yeah. But I had an incredible vision for her and it worked. Chrysalis put her out and she became a big star. I worked Cher on the Take Me Home album, the one where she’s wearing kind of a strange outfit on the cover. She was a delight to work with. A real professional. Showed up early and stayed late. And sang great in the studio. I really like Cher. I worked with Dionne Warwick on "I’ll Never Love This Way Again." Produced different people, like for TV specials I worked with Ray Charles and John Denver. I worked with the girl from Fame, Irene Cara. I produced an album for her called Anyone Can See. Assorted new people that were getting big shot from record companies. Another dozen people off and on. I did a lot of production. It seems to me I was doing two or three albums a year.

Do you have a favorite song you recorded?

"Sugar Sugar" has to be the top of my list. It meant so much to me to break through and establish myself as a hit singer. "Sugar Sugar" is top of my list, and I love it very much. But they’re all my babies. I love them all.

How about anything you would just as soon forget?

"Yippy-Yay-Kay-Kay-Aye." One of the songs from the first Archies album. Kind of a country song I wasn’t into. I didn’t like that Jeff Barry song.

Was there anything you would have liked to have sung but couldn’t?

Just one is tough. "Happy Together." Or "Good Vibrations." I would have loved to have sung that.

A couple of years ago, you did an album called Favorites, where you recorded a bunch of people’s songs. How did you decide to do that, and how did you decide which songs you were going to record?

The record company RKO Unique gave me the opportunity to put out a Favorites themed album. I was producing videos and audios for maybe sixty or seventy 60s groups for a series called Legends Live, which is an audio-video series. I got to record all these groups… The Grass Roots, the Association, Lou Christie, Brian Hyland, Al Wilson. After working with all these people I realize I Liked their songs. So I recorded a bunch of sixties songs. I’m getting ready to do a Volume II of my favorite 70s songs.

When did you get back into touring?

Over the last few years I’ve returned to live performing. I’ve decided that something was missing in my life, and that was the getting out live and seeing the fans. And having some fun traveling around the country and the world. I’m doing this tour now with Andy Kim and Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods and the Ohio Express and Al Wilson and Alan O’Day. It’s called the Super Seventies tour. We’ll be performing in casinos and venues all over the country. This is a great tour, and they’re also talking about doing a PBS special at the MGM Grand.

Radio playlists are so regimented anymore. You used to be able to hear rock, soul, pop and country all on the same station, and that just doesn't happen anymore. Do you think that can inhibit new musicians?

It’s always been difficult to get on radio. No matter what. Hundreds of records come out a week. Only five or six are programmable to the stations. You’re really fighting an uphill battle. You really need the push of a record company or a manager or a great song. The fragmentation of the music market makes it so at least you know where you’re going. If you cut a country record, you know what radio you’re going on. MOR record, you go there. Pop, you go to the pop stations. It’s always been difficult, it will always be difficult. The one light I see is the internet and internet radio… which is going to give people access to 500 stations all over the world. Whatever they need on their car radios and things at some point. Maybe not this year, but five years from now most likely. The internet itself is helping groups establish themselves, with their own websites, their own sound clips and video clips. If you can drive traffic to you, get some publicity and get people to come take a look at you, there’s a better chance today than there was ten years ago when the industry was a closed unit. I just hope for the best for the new people. You go to MP3.com, you can see all kinds of stuff.

How would you like for people to see your music?

I would like them to say it meant something in their life. It had meaning and it enhanced their life in someway. It changed something. It brought them a smile or it made them get up and dance. ‘Sugar Sugar’ was one of the biggest dance records in the world, so I’m sure a lot of people danced to it. ‘Tracy…’ a lot of mothers and fathers named their kids Tracy. I meet a lot of Tracy’s now around 30-years-old. I would like people to just think back and think it contributed to the goodness of the world, and the positive stuff that came out of it. The year ‘Sugar Sugar’ was a hit, there was the Vietnam war and a lot of protesting and a lot of divisiveness. ‘Sugar Sugar’ was just this wonderful dance record, this happy little song that you could just kind of make anything out of it. That was the number one record of the year, 1969, in the era of Woodstock. So I was very fortunate to be a part of it.

Here's a student film (The Love Potion) made by Peter Tork circa 1962. The music was added by the person who uploaded the video.

1981

John Lennon speaks to Howard Cosell in 1974

Kraftwerk 2001

1984

Brendan said:

Typically great, enriching thread. Thanks!!

You're welcome.

Rare Earth

Rare Earth is an american rock band affiliated with Motown’s Rare Earth record label (which was named after the band) who were particularly famous in the late-1960s and 1970s.

The group formed in 1961 as The Sunliners, and, after changing their name to “Rare Earth”, after the “rare Earth hypothesis,” were signed to Motown in 1969. The band was the first act signed to a new Motown imprint that would be dedicated to white rock acts. The record company didn’t have a name for the new label yet, and the band jokingly suggested Motown call the label “Rare Earth.” To the band’s surprise, Motown decided to do just that.

The main personnel in the group included Gil Bridges (saxophone and vocals ), Pete Rivera a.k.a. Peter Hoorelbeke (lead vocals and drums), John Parrish a.k.a. John Persh (bass guitar, trombone and vocals), Rod Richards (born Rod Cox, guitar), Edward “Eddie” Guzman (congas and assorted percussive instruments) and Kenny James (born Ken Folcik, keyboards). The personnel lineup changed considerably over the years, with three members of the group dying during the 1980s and 1990s, and the only original member currently left in the group is Bridges.

Rare Earth had a number of Top Ten hits in the 1970-1971 period, including covers of The Temptations’ “(I Know) I’m Losing You” (which was used in the documentary video It’s Time) and “Get Ready”. The cover of “Get Ready” was their biggest hit, peaking at #4 on the US pop charts, a better performance than the original. They did not chart significantly after 1971, although they continued to record into the 1980s. Their 1973 album Ma, written and produced by Norman Whitfield, is considered their best overall work, and features their version of “Hum Along and Dance”.

The group gained a bit of notoriety when it was mentioned dismissively in the lyrics to Gil Scott-Heron’s landmark 1970 poem “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” which included the line, “The theme song [to the revolution] will not be written by Jim Webb, Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash, Engelbert Humperdinck, or the Rare Earth.”

Rare Earth, which continues to perform at corporate events and on the oldies circuit, appears to have had the last word, however; bits from their recordings have been used as samples on recordings as diverse as Beck’s “Derelict”, Black Sheep’s “Try Counting Sheep”, Peanut Butter Wolf’s “Tale of Five Cities”, Scarface’s “Faith”, NWA’s “Real N****z Don’t Die” and Eric B. and Rakim’s “What’s Going On”. Their hit “I Just Want to Celebrate” was also used in a major national advertising campaign by Ford Motor Company.

Rare Earth began as an R&B band called the Sunliners in Detroit in 1961. Of the musicians who would be part of the band dubbed Rare Earth, only sax player Gil Bridges and drummer Pete Rivera were present. John Parrish joined on bass in 1962. Rod Richards became a guitarist with the group in 1966. Keyboardist Kenny James came into the fold the same year. After years of doing the club circuit, the group changed their name to Rare Earth and released Dreams/Answers on Verve. The album received little reaction and the group was picked up by Motown Records as the first act on their yet-to-be-named new label. Rare Earth suggested to Motown that the label name their new subsidiary after the band and Rare Earth Records was born.

When they set out to record their first album, they essentially ran out of material and did a 21-minute rendition of the Temptation’s “Get Ready” to fill out the space. The album was making no headway on the charts for a long period of time. So they took the first three minutes of “Get Ready,” released it as a single and it made its way into the U.S. Top Ten list, peaking at number four. Pulled along by the success of the single, the album also began to sell, breaking the Top 20, and Rare Earth’s career was officially on its way. The second album, Ecology, was released in June of 1970, a couple months short of a year after “Get Ready” had been put out. Interestingly enough, Ecology was not really the group’s second album, but their third. An album entitled Generation was recorded as the soundtrack to the film of the same name. When the film stalled at the box office, the album was shelved. Still, Ecology would yield not one, but two hit singles. The first was “(I Know) I’m Losing You” (another Temptations cover), which also broke the Top Ten. The second single, “Born to Wander,” did not fare quite so well, but did make the Top 20. The album was catapulted to number 15.

Not wanting to lose momentum, One World followed almost exactly a year after Ecology, and yielded another hit single in a longtime classic, “I Just Want to Celebrate.” The song peaked on the pop charts at number seven and the album broke the Top 50. They released a live album in December of the same year. For the next album, Willie Remembers, the group insisted on doing all originals, a move that was not common around the Motown camp. Unfortunately, for a band trying to prove a point, the album never reached the type of sales of previous records. Indeed, it stalled out at number 90, and the single “Good Time Sally” didn’t even break the Top 50.

Motown tightened the creative grip on the group and original producer Norman Whitfield, who had worked with the group on earlier albums, was brought in to save the day. The resulting album, Ma, was released in May of 1973 and fared just a little better than Willie Remembers, peaking at number 65. The label was not pleased and sent the group into the studio to record with Stevie Wonder. That pairing did not really gel, though, and only two tracks were recorded, neither of which were released. Instead, the label sought to release another live album, trying to regain the spark that Rare Earth had had. That project also fell by the wayside, though.

What followed was a series of lineup changes and legal battles, and the group stopped touring altogether in 1974. The following year Rare Earth, in a new lineup, released Back to Earth. The album did a bit better than the previous one, reaching number 59 on the charts. The single, appropriately entitled “It Makes You Happy (But It Ain’t Gonna Last Too Long)” stalled just outside the Top 100. A disco-oriented excursion entitled Midnight Lady was released in 1976, but failed to really go anywhere. To make matters worse, Rare Earth Records was discontinued altogether. The band had broken up by this time.

As fate would have it, though, this was not the end of Rare Earth. Instead, Barney Ales, who had presided over Rare Earth Records, started his own label Prodigal Records. He talked the group into reuniting to record the label debut. The resulting album, Rare Earth, was released in 1977 and made no real waves in the music business. Rare Earth got things together again for a marathon recording session the following year. That session yielded not one, but two albums. The first was Band Together, released in April of 1978, with Grand Slam following in September. Neither of those albums every really took off, either. The group essentially broke up in 1978, although a version of the original lineup was touring all the way into 1983. A different incarnation of the group, with just two original members, still makes the circuits.

James Jamerson

Many great jazz men were born in the southern states. James Lee Jamerson was no exception, born on January 29, 1936, in Charleston, NC, to the union of James Lee Jamerson Sr. and his wife Elisabeth. His father worked in shipyards and his mother was a domestic worker. When his parents divorced, Jamerson divided his time between his grandmother who played piano, an aunt who sang in the church choir, and practicing piano at his cousin's house. He began developing his innate musical talents while incessantly listening to gospel, jazz, and blues stations. I will mention before we get too much into the music, James' second love was karate, which he practised throughout his life... mainly in his backyard at home!!

After a bicycle accident, he spent a year in a wheelchair. Forced to wear high-topped shoes in order to walk, the incident left Jamerson with a slight limp and a gnawing self-consciousness that would haunt him for his entire life. In 1953, Jamerson's mother moved to Detroit to find work. A year later, she sent for her son. At Northwestern High, Jamerson picked up an upright bass that was lying on the floor in the music room and "found" his instrument. His music teacher said it would be ideal for him as he had such large hands. Never a solitary play-the-scales-millions-of-times type of musician, the budding young bassist honed his skills at jam sessions, in the high school jazz band, and by playing with some of Detroit's top jazz musicians like Kenny Burrell, Yusef Lateef, and Hank Jones. As his reputation grew, Jamerson began playing at dances, weddings, and frat parties with schoolmates Richard 'Popcorn' Wylie (piano) and Clifford Mack (drums). Years later, 1967, Jamerson played on a hit record of a song written by Wylie, "With This Ring" by the Platters.

Jazzman Jamerson was becoming a neighborhood hero, driving around Detroit with his upright bass sticking out of his car window. Still a minor, the Detroit police department gave him a permit to play in clubs that served liquor, enabling him to get more work. Just before graduation, he married Annie Wells, and turned down a music scholarship from Wayne State University, reasoning that he was already working in the music field. He had a growing family to support. His greatest love was his children, he was a devoted Father and Husband.

After graduation, he began playing with Washboard Willie and the Supersuds of Rhythm. The experience was both a blessing and a curse. By playing with the blues-based band, Jamerson learned how to play the blues, while on his other gigs he played all kinds of jazz. But he also began drinking alcohol, something he had abstained from up to that point.

In 1958, Johnnie Mae Matthews, owner of Northern Records heard Jamerson at a Supersuds club gig and asked him to play on sessions for the label. His unique style came to the attention of other Detroit-area labels, and the 22-year-old Jamerson began cutting sides for Fortune, Tri-Phi, Anna Records, and others. In 1959 Joe Hunter spotted James "When I first saw him or heard him play, it was with a group called Washboard Willie. This cat used to play a washboard, like drums. Jamerson was playing with him. I think Jamerson developed his style playing with Washboard Willie. Later on, I took him over to Motown. They heard Jamerson play, they knew that was something else. It was exactly what we needed" . So Joe invited Jamerson into Joe Hunter Band band, which led to sessions at a small basement studio in a converted house at 2648 West Grand Boulevard, which eventually became the recording base of Motown Records.

In 1961, Jamerson switched to the newly created electric Fender Precision bass. The move made his bass lines stand out more on records. On some tracks he started out recording the bass line with his trusty acoustic and then doubled the bass line with the Fender to give the bass part an extra punch. His playing was so precise that it was difficult to hear that there were two basses on the record. When the bassist wasn't touring with Jackie Wilson or recording for Motown or touring with their acts, Jamerson would travel to nearby Chicago to cut sides for VeeJay or Brunswick. He can be heard on John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom" (number 16 R&B chart, summer 1962). The musician became so crucial to Motown's hits that recording dates would be postponed until he was available. In the very early days James toured endlessly with Jackie Wilson, Marv Johnson and The Miricles. Berry became tired of holding recordings up, put Jamerson on a retainer, so it was full time in the snakepit for James.

Though Motown wasn't too keen about Jamerson and the rest of the Funk Brothers recording for other labels, the Detroit music community and several music entrepreneurs, local and otherwise, took advantage of the situation, offering the band more money, leading to the Funk Brothers being heard on a lot of "backdoor sessions." For the local Golden World and Ric-Tic label owned by Twenty Grand Club owner Ed Wingate, the band can be heard on "Agent Double-O Soul" (number eight R&B chart, 1965) and "Stop Her on Sight" (number nine R&B chart, 1966) by Edwin Starr, and "I Just Wanna Testify" by the Parliaments (number three R&B chart, 1967). For Ollie McLaughlin's Karen label, there was "Cool Jerk" by the Capitols (Top Ten R&B chart, number seven pop chart, July 1966). The band can also be heard on records issued by the numerous labels that sprang up in the wake of Motown's phenomenal success.

Making the trips to nearby Chicago, they cut several hits for producer Carl Davis and Jackie Wilson. "Whispers (Gettin Louder)," recorded on August 8, 1966, and released September 1966, went to number five R&B chart and number 11 pop chart in the fall of 1966. "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" set the stage for Wilson's mid-'60s comeback and was his second number one R&B single (pop chart number six) on October 7, 1967. Other hits included "Since You Showed Me How to Be Happy" (number 22 R&B chart, November 1967), "I Get the Sweetest Feeling" (number 12 R&B chart, June 1968), and "(I Can Feel Those Vibrations) This Love Is Real" (number nine R&B chart, November 1970). The success of these records, both commercially and aesthetically, suggest that if Wilson had been signed to Motown he would have had a more consistent career. It's even more ironic given that Gordy's first big break came as one of Wilson's early songwriters in the late '50s. The band also traveled south to record in Muscle Shoals and Atlanta, among other cities. By 1968, Jamerson asked for and received a salary increase of $1000 a week, bringing his yearly income up to $52,000 a year. That's not counting moneys earned from bonuses, club dates, and "backdoor sessions." But the following year, things began to change. Jamerson lost one of his closest friends, Motown drummer Benny Benjamin, to heroin addiction. Because of high demand, Motown hired another bassist Bob Babbitt in an effort to keep up with the ever-expanding recording schedules; Jamerson couldn't be in two places at once. The label's music became more dependent on written musical arrangements and less on the Funk Brothers' "off the cuff" interplay. It was hard for Jamerson to adjust to the seemingly more rigid way of doing things.

Despite his alcoholism, and the opinion of some Motown staffers, Gordy refused to fire Jamerson. He believed that the bassist still had the music in him. The loyalty paid off, as Marvin Gaye enlisted Jamerson to play on his 1971 multi-platinum What's Going On. In 1973, Motown moved to Los Angeles and Jamerson followed shortly after. However with his strict contract finished Jamerson had more freedom. The following year, the bassist's work schedule seemed to be his busiest ever as he toured with Marvin Gaye, Joan Baez, and Maria Muldaur, and recorded jingles, movie scores, TV themes (Starsky and Hutch), the Hues Corporation's "Rock the Boat" (number two R&B chart for two weeks, number one pop chart, spring 1974), the Sylvers' "Boogie Fever" (number one R&B chart, number one pop chart, late 1975), "Theme From S.W.A.T." by the studio group Rhythm Heritage (number 11 R&B chart, number one pop chart, late 1975), and Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr.'s "You Don't Have to Be a Star (To Be in My Show)" (number one R&B chart, number one pop, fall 1976). He can also be heard on Robert Palmer's "Which of Us Is the Fool" from his 1976 Island LP Pressure Drop.

Another gold hit that featured Jamerson was "Then Came You" by Dionne Warwick and the Spinners (number two R&B chart, number one pop chart, 1974). As far as Warwick was concerned, this was a continuation of a long collaboration. During the '60s, Warwick's songwriting/producing duo, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, would have clandestine rendezvous with the Funk Brothers.

By 1979 things began to sour for Jamerson as chronic alcoholism, emotional problems, and medication-related mishaps plagued the bassist, leading to his eventual exclusion from the A-list of first-call session players. But the main root problem being emotional and a very deep depression. He found it very differcult to adjust to the differences between Detroit & LA methods of recording and most of the classic Motown artists had left the Motown Label. Another reason, new producers wanted him to use different strings, to alter his sound, they were writing music and not letting James put his soul into it. Everyone wanted him to sound different. They were gradually sapping him. It got to a stage where James would sit for hours listening to his old motown records where he played his funky bass lines, and remembering the freedom of his wild jamming nights, it was stressful and painful for him and for his family watching such a great musician so broken. As James Jamerson Junior said "Imagine someone going up to Dizzy Gillespie or Hendrix or some other inventive musician and demand that they play like everyone else. They were telling my Dad to stop being James Jamerson, It's not that he couldn't do it, he wouldn't". When the Funk Brothers came down to record with him late 79 they said he was a shadow of himself , it was as if someone had taken out his heart.

Much of the last 2 years of Jamerson's life was spent in and out of hospitals and mental institutions, though in the last few months he managed to produce some sides for singer / songwriter Kenny Koontz. She recalls how kind he was "With all his problems he was still trying to help everyone else, the grandad of the block. When my grandma died he drove me the 2000 mile round trip for her funeral" Strangely the last song title James ever played bass on was Kenny Koontz' "LA Is The Place". ( I think we will all agree LA helped killed him) Within weeks James was bed ridden, one final evil blow struck this amazing soul, someone came into his home and stole his friend of 21 years, his 1962 Fender Precision. Two days later he sadly slipped away, almost forgotten and still unknown to the world. Slipped away just four months after the May 1983 NBC-TV broadcast of Motown 25: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, in which neither James or the Funk Brothers, never got even one tiny mention, James Jamerson died from complications due to cirrhosis of the liver, heart failure, and pneumonia on August 2, 1983, at the University of Southern California County Hospital. More than 600 people paid their last respects to Jamerson in churches in Detroit and LA.

Roger Troutman interview in Tokyo

Bob Harris interviews The Police on October 27, 1979

Phil Collins & John Goodsall (Brand X) 1979 interview

MickyDolenz said:

Good thread !

Man that cover brings back memories. Years ago when i was doing time in juvenile hall, this issue of Rock and Soul was one of the few magazines that i had to read. I wore my copy out. Thanks for the memories man !

http:/

[img:$uid]http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/n614/jamfanhot/th_Clipboard01.jpg?t=1351592387[/img:$uid]

Yesssssssssssssssssssss..lol

March 1972

Part 2