Originally Posted by
paladin
I was going through a bunch of tunes by The Dramatics over the holidays and thought it would be nice to revisit this signature marriage of a songwriter and premiere vocal group. With the passing of Lenny Mayes and Ron Banks I thought I might speak to the greatness of their music and their collaborations with Tony Hester.
In my opinion Tony Hester was as talented a songwriter to ever pen a tune, his use of simile and adjectives in songs he wrote for the Dramatics where as good as anything Smokey Robinson or Norman Whitfield wrote for the Temptations. Although they were never as popular as The Temptations, they certainly belong in that rarefied air they inhabit. Like Curtis & Smokey, Tony Hester's songs always told a story that simply required you to listen and be entertained.
Unfortunately we don't have a wealth of material Tony Hester produced on the Dramatics because of his untimely death, but those songs he did write for them were some of the best tunes they recorded. The Dramatics main producer Mr. Don Davis did maintain a cache of Tony's material and ironically the Dramatics would proceed to release a song here and there of Tony's well after his death. Mr Davis released an album entitled "Mellow Drama", which was chock full of unreleased material primarily written by Mr. Hester.
Along with Mr. Davis, Michael Henderson wrote and produced some of the Dramatics more popular hits and he captured the Dramatics unique flavor as only he could and we were all better off because of it. However when Tony Hester penned a Dramatic tune and the fellas interpreted it in their special way, it was simply none better. Anyone out there got any favorites, comments etc ?
Well I guess it's only fair to contribute to a thread I created: two of my favorites are :
Now You Got me Loving You and A Marriage on Paper Only.
more later.............
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