Chart entered : 14 November 1970
Chart peak : 20
Number of hits : 11
More Motown now as we come to the group that had to add "Detroit" to their name in the UK to avoid confusion with the Liverpudlian folk group beloved of all my primary school teachers. That seems something of a shame as it's fun to imagine their respective audiences turning up at the wrong gig.
The U.S. Spinners' story began in the mid-1950s when Billy Henderson, Henry Fambrough and Pervis Jackson were part of a vocal quintet in Detroit called The Domingoes. After some line-up changes which brought in Bobby Smith and George Dixon they renamed themselves The Spinners in 1961 when they got a record contract with Tri-Phi, owned by Berry Gordy's soon-to-be-brother-in-law Harvey Fuqua ( I wonder how you pronounce that ).
They got off to a flying start when their first single in May 1961, "That's What Girls Are Made For" written by Fuqua and Gwen Gordy got to number 27 in the US charts. It's historically interesting as a musical halfway point between doo wop and early soul but sounds a bit unpolished to modern ears ( including the rudimentary drumming by the young Marvin Gaye).
It proved something of a false start as the follow-up "Love ( I'm So Glad) I Found You" only scraped to number 91. Bobby, as lead singer , swoops and hollers impressively but there's not much of a song beneath him. The third single "What Did She Use" has George on lead vocals but is utterly torpedoed by a terrible production which has a too loud glockenspiel apparently playing a different tune entirely over the top of the vocals. It was the first of a long series of flops by the band.
The next single "I Got Your Water Boiling, Baby ( I'm Gonna Cook Your Goose ) " changes tack by going for a collectively sung primitive R & B groove, more appealing to me but it cut no ice in 1962. Around this time they were also acting as backing vocalists for Fuqua himself but the singles released by "Harvey and the Spinners " did no better.
In December 1962 they put Bobby's name out front for "She Don't Love Me" which is a decent Sam Cooke impersonation but again not much of a song. That was their last single for Tri-Phi as Berry Gordy bought the label in 1963 and the band found themselves on Motown. At the same time George left the group and Edgar "Chico" Edwards joined in his stead.
They had to wait a while for another chance to record but in October 1964 released "Sweet Thing" whose big production comes as a jolt after the primitive sound of the Tri-Phi recordings. The Funk Brothers lay down a strong rhythm and there are a lot of neat brass fills but there's not much of a chorus to make it memorable. It wasn't a hit but inevitably has its champions on the Northern Soul scene.
Another nine months elapsed before "I'll Always Love You" restored them to the US charts peaking at 35 in the summer of 1965 . It's not that special, sounding like an average Temptations record but did at least prove they had chart potential. Not that they got many chances to realise it; Gordy looked on them as strictly second division fare. It's been suggested that Bobby's voice wasn't distinctive enough to interest the best writers. The members were used as gofers, chauffeurs for their more esteemed peers and even in the warehouse and restricted to releasing one single a year.
"Truly Yours" was released in March 1966 and couldn't scrape into the Top 100. A piano based mid-tempo groove about an uneven relationship I rate it higher than its predecessor but leaving such long gaps between each single destroyed any chance of building up career momentum.
In May 1967 they released "For All We Know" , a Four Seasons-style treatment of a much-covered song from the thirties with a corny spoken introduction. The Motown/ Tin Pan Alley crossover actually works quite well but obviously not for the late 60s pop audience. After this one Chico was replaced by G C Cameron , an ex-Marine who could handle lead vocals and did those duties on the next few singles.
1968's offering was "Bad Bad Weather" which again sounds like a Temptations offcut spiced up with thunderclaps by producer George Gordy. The following year they were further degraded by being switched to the ironically-named V.I.P. label used for Motown's most minor acts. With "In My Diary" they went back to their doo wop roots with a languid ballad originally released by Fuqua's band The Moonglows in 1955 that showcases newboy GC's talents.
For their first single of the seventies GC shared lead duties with Pervis on the black empowerment anthem "Message From A Black Man" written by Whitfield and Strong and originally recorded by The Temptations on their album Puzzle People in 1969. It's certainly of its moment with the chattering percussion , wah-wah guitar and insinuating spoken lines but it still sounds like an album track rather than a single.
Then came "It's A Shame" written by Stevie Wonder , his then-wife Syreeta and Lee Garrett. Wonder also produced the single. It's immediately stamped for immortality by that opening and much-sampled jangly guitar figure played by Dennis Coffey and Joe Messina which has made the song more famous than the band recording it. That's not to say the rest of the song isn't pretty good. GC's vocal is a controlled drawl vocal for the first minute of the song then breaks into a falsetto, eventually hitting Minnie Ripperton territory as the song about a wounded male progresses. It's a virtuoso performance apparently recorded in one take.
Besides being their first UK hit it was their biggest hit in the US to date peaking at 14 and setting them up to be consistent hitmakers for over a decade, gratifyingly not for the label who'd treated them so shabbily. The guitar sample and chorus hook gave Monie Love her biggest hit with It's A Shame ( My Sister) two decades later although it shouldn't really have got higher than the original.
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