1983 at MOTOWN: FINIS HENDERSON, MICHAEL LOVESMITH
During the early eighties, and in particular 1983 when Motown celebrated its 25th anniversary with the five-hour spectacular Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever staged at Los Angeles’ Pasadena Civic Auditorium, the company’s music continued to change. Sometimes not for the better. New artists were signed who didn’t represent the Motown Sound we knew and loved, but who brought with them music representative of the eighties. So we needed to grow alongside the changing face of the company. Or not.
One such artist was Finis Henderson who released his first album Finis featuring the hit single “Skip To My Lou” which stayed on the US charts for three-plus months. The UK release date was July 1983. We talked about him a few months ago, so let’s move onto another equally interesting new signing, Michael Lovesmith, who released his debut album I Can Make It Happen a couple of months after Mr. Henderson’s UK outing.
Briefly, Michael, born Michael Larry Smith in 1953 in St Louis, Missouri, was already an established and accomplished writer/producer who had all the potential to become a top league artist with his debut album, I Can Make It Happen. His ‘workaholic’ career began as a musician in the late sixties with the Isley Brothers.
From this association, he switched to Stax Records before moving to Holland, Dozier and Holland’s Invictus Records during the seventies. “I signed a recording deal with them with my brothers. We were known as The Smith Connection. I also produced with the Hollands for groups like The Honey Cone. I was part of Holland, Dozier and Holland Productions which was a collective name for many. As part of this team I was trained to do many things, but when Invictus took a dive they lost a lot of their acts.”
As a member of the before mentioned Smith Connection – Michael and his brothers Danny and Louis – were signed to the Music Merchant label, an offshoot of Invictus. And there they recorded the Under My Wings album in 1972, enjoying an R&B hit “(I’ve Been A Winner, I’ve Been A Loser) I’ve Been In Love”.
Holland, Dozier and Holland planned to leave Detroit for California to work for other record companies, including Motown, of course. Lamont Dozier had already moved out there, so Michael was asked to replace him in the hit- making trio. The first group they worked with was the Jackson 5. “Michael and Jermaine were obsessed with music, whereas the others were hip but not all consuming,” Michael said at the time.
This was the start of his ten-year association with Motown as a writer/producer/singer, where his time was spent in the studios changing acts into stars: “I was committed to my career of music and dreamt of knowing everyone who was famous, and now I was in the position of fulfilling that dream with Diana Ross, The Temptations and, of course, the Jackson 5. Others like me had the opportunity but not the commitment. I worked day and night to the point of exhaustion to make my mark.”
While working in the studios with Michael Jackson, Michael Lovesmith made that ‘mark’ when he met Berry Gordy and Suzanne de Passe for the first time. “They had no idea that I was this teenager who was conducting an orchestra, writing music, tutoring the engineer and so on. So Berry came into the studio and stood in the corner. I was getting irritated by him and the other people there, and was about to ask them to leave when Berry said how fantastic I was. However, I owe my signing to Suzanne de Passe and Jermaine Jackson.” The latter later befriended him and together they worked on the My Name Is Jermaine album before the Jackson brother persuaded him to pursue a solo career, after recording the Lovesmith album with his brothers in August 1981.
When computers began replacing musicians in the studio, Michael, like many contemporary artists, became an operator and was able to programme all aspects of a song, as he remembered: “Writing takes one thousandth of the time it used to because I write straight on to the computer and everything is played back to me. I programme the drum machine for instance, and all the other instruments are added this way. The song is finished in an hour.” Mmm, try telling Stevie Wonder that, and you’d get laughed out of the studio in double quick time!
Anyway, “Baby I Will” was Michael’s first single lifted from the I Can Make It Happen album released June 1983, two months later in the UK. First thing listeners noted was he sounded remarkably like Marvin Gaye, so he returned to the studio to change the sound, not wanting to be trapped in the soundalike market. Mmm….I’d have thought that was a compliment, wouldn’t you?
Following I Can Make It Happen, two further albums followed, Diamond In The Raw in ’84 and Rhymes Of Passion, a year later. Neither set the world on fire. However, while his own career might have faltered, his talents were very much in demand, as he sang back ups for Luther Vandross on his 1988 album, Any Love, and continued to write and produce for Motown acts.
Into the nineties, he moved into management as an executive of Jobete Music, later becoming president of West Grand Media Inc, responsible for many of Motown’s assets. Another of his executive positions was with the travelling show Motown: The Musical.
STEVIE WONDER & EDDIE MURPHY
Talking of Stevie Wonder, around this time he turned comedian to appear on US television in Saturday Night Live, the comedy programme that had elevated Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd, among others, into stardom. I didn’t see the show, so reliant on others here. The story goes that Stevie, complete with British accent, portrayed Rodney Rhythm, a rock music critic, and assisted by Eddie Murphy and other show regulars, skitted through a burlesque imitation of television commercials, the sordid side of music business management, and revealed his pleasure in artists who had abandoned songs of social comment to concentrate on sex (i.e. Marvin Gaye).
Stevie’s sharp wit, however, apparently offended some viewers, but as he told author John Swenson, “My feeling was that the whole show is such an obvious joke in the first place, that if you’re going to participate, you have to be that. It was fun (and) I’d like to do it again.”
By all accounts, Eddie Murphy also upset viewers during another episode with his impersonation of Stevie. In response to the complaints, the comic included in his act the following : “Stevie ‘n’ I are in the car and I just say ‘shut the f**k up, Stevie. You’re a genius ‘n all that s***, ‘n we hang out ‘n it’s nice ‘n all that, but I don’t appreciate all the flak. Personally, you know how I feel about the piano ‘n singing. I ain’t that impressed. You wanna impress me? Take the wheel for a while!'”
Wow, the woke brigade and our ‘nanny state; of today would be spitting feathers over a statement like that. How times have changed, and often not for the better.
DeBARGE
Sharing the same release month as Michael Lovesmith’s debut was the All This Love album from DeBarge. Produced by lead singer and the group’s pin up Eldra, and Iris Gordy – Berry is listed as executive producer which often represents a courtesy title – it launched them into R&B stardom.
This second album spawned a trio of American singles, “Stop! Don’t Tease Me”, “I Like It” and “All This Love”, which helped push the album through gold status. The latter single was written for Marvin Gaye, who had inspired the song, and this is hinted at by the vocal harmonising towards the end of the song. Marvin left Motown before the two could collaborate, so DeBarge recorded it instead. This was a family scourged by tragedy, wrong decisions and sadness, and, as is usually the case, this replaced newspaper headlines instead of their music.
MOTOWN-RELATED BOOKS: WANDA ROGERS/MAXINE POWELL
Last month I mentioned the publication of Margena A Christian’s “It’s No Wonder – The Life And Times of Motown’s Legendary Songwriter Sylvia Moy”, and like London buses, another two books are on the way. I’m disappointed to say, neither is about The Velvelettes, a book that is so long overdue as their story is as vital as any who recorded for Motown. So, eyes down: Meta Ventress, the daughter of the late Wanda Rogers is due to publish “The Untold Story of Wanda Rogers”.
The much loved Marvelette died in Garden City, Michigan, on 15 December 2021 from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease complications. She was seventy-eight years old. Meta once said that her mother never lost her glamour but did have to be reminded of the legacy she left behind in the music industry: “I told her constantly, ‘all these people love you.’ And she’d say ‘wow’. She didn’t wake up every day thinking of The Marvelettes, but she never lost that glamour.”
Fellow artist and friend, Carolyn Crawford recalled, “We did a lot of record hops together, The Marvelettes and The Velvelettes. She was a pleasant, friendly person.” Carolyn also referenced the March 1990 concert at the Hotel Pontchartrain, where Wanda had joined in the fun with other Motowners.
By this time, of course, she had endured numerous tragedies, and hadn’t performed for several years. Carolyn told Detroit Free Press, “We hadn’t seen her in so long and she was going through some rough times. But we all got together and made her up and everything, and she looked so pretty, and that Marvelette came right out of her….She was down to earth, like Mary Wilson. We didn’t have a lot of private moments, but we were Motown family.” You’ll recall another Marvelette, Gladys Horton’s “A Letter From The Postman” was published in 2022 and is still available on amazon, and via other book sellers. A compelling read.
The other book that’s come to my notice is written by Beverly Bantom titled, “Maxine Powell: Motown’s Maven Of Class, Style And Refinement”. The publicity blurb says this new biography celebrates the extraordinary Mrs. Powell who, as you know, built Motown’s legendary Artist Development Department. Martha Reeves has penned the book’s introduction, Claudette Robinson, the foreword, with Paul Riser adding his reflections.
Mrs. Powell, who referred to the author as her God-sent daughter, had actually started writing this book before she died in October 2013, and Beverly promised her that she would finish it. It can be ordered from https://www.maxine-powell.com/ with shipping in the US only.
That rings a bell doesn’t it? And that nicely brings us to Martha’s pending album, “Searching” mentioned last month Still no change. So it’ll be available through streaming platforms, with the actual vinyl disc and CD being shipped in the US only.
HEATWAVE
I do hope you’re coping with the extraordinary weather we’re having, particularly as we’re on the verge of our third heatwave in two months. Tell you what – if I still worked at Motown, I’d be pushing for the release of “Heatwave”, first out in 1963, by Martha and the girls. Although it’s not about the weather, but rather a guy whose heart is “burning with desire” with love, while querying “is this the way love’s supposed to be?” I’ll take it as a weather report any day.
Take care out there and thanks for being with me.
Sharon Davis
FINIS HENDERSON (DIGITAL) – US LINK / UK LINK
MICHAEL LOVESMITH: I CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN (VINYL) – US LINK
MICHAEL LOVESMITH: RHYMES OF PASSION (CD) – UK LINK
DeBARGE: ALL THIS LOVE (DIGITAL) – US LINK
DeBARGE: ALL THIS LOVE (CD/VINYL/DIGITAL) – UK LINK
MAXINE POWELL: MOTOWN’S MAVEN OF CLASS, STYLE AND REFINEMENT – US LINK
