Who is Billie Jean Brown?

[smark21]

Who is Billie Jean Brown?

I’ve read her name mentioned a couple of times in the Vandellas’s 50th Anniversary box set thread. Seems like she made some bad decisions when it came to Vandellas releases.

[ralpht]

Billie Jean Brown was the head of the Quality Control department. She wielded a lot of power as to what record was going to be released and if it was, indeed, ready for release.

[kenneth]

She later became an attorney but is no longer practicing, though for a long time she practiced in the Los Angeles area.

http://members.calbar.ca.gov/fal/Member/Detail/108249

[smark21]

Thanks--despite decisions like shelving Jimmy Mack, I would assume she was usually pretty sharp about doing her job.

[soulwally]

She has at least one Jobete songwriting credit too - on Shorty's Here Comes The Judge, where she shares the credits with Shorty and Suzanne de Passe. I wonder just what Billie and Suzanne contributed?!!

[reese]

She has at least one Jobete songwriting credit too - on Shorty's Here Comes The Judge, where she shares the credits with Shorty and Suzanne de Passe. I wonder just what Billie and Suzanne contributed?!!

There is a chapter on Billie Jean in Don Waller's book THE MOTOWN STORY.

Re HERE COMES THE JUDGE, she mentioned that its inspiration came from Sammy Davis, Jr. doing that routine on LAUGH-IN quite often. She thought it would be great if Motown had a record that could capitalize on its popularity, and that's how the song came about.

[soulwally]

So she got a writing credit... and the musicians and arrangers who contributed more artistically rarely if ever got recognised.