Mike
continued collaborating with Mr. Wingate and the result
was Ric-Tic’s penultimate 45, The Fantastic Fours’ super
song, “I Love You Madly.”
It
was originally destined for singer Emanuel Laskey,
who told me how things evolved:
“I
was working in a shoe store and Mike Hanks saw me
and said, ‘Hey, Laskey! What ya doing these
days?’ I said, ‘Nothing,’ and
he said, ‘Do you feel like singing? I got
a couple of tunes for ya, man!’
He
took me to Mr. Wingate’s house on Edison… he
was working out of his basement. Mr. Wingate said, ‘I
like that boy, but I don’t want him to have
that song. I want Sweets (James Epps) to have
it.’ So I walked to Sweet James’s
house and I almost cried when I gave it (the master
tape) to him. It was a hit for me - I knew that.
The Fantastic Four were just coming off a hit record… when
I heard them do it I was I happy for them, ‘cause
it was (another) hit for them.”
And
so it was. It reached Billboard’s number 12
in September ‘68.
Recorded
at the Tera Shirma’s cutting-edge studio it
has a classy sound unlike Mike’s earlier, brassy,
low-fi D-Town recordings, with violins accentuating
the song’s romantic lyrics. And if you flip
it over you’ll hear Floyd Jones playing trumpet
on a nice instrumental version, deftly mimicking
the group’s vocal harmonies.
It
was released just a month before Mr. Wingate sold
out to Motown and the behemoth immediately re-pressed
it, hoping for further sales. I imagine Mike didn’t
know whether to laugh or cry at the irony of his
biggest hit being released on the Soul label, now
owned by his long-time rival and number-one-hate-figure,
Berry Gordy.
After
the disappointment of missing out on “I Love
You Madly” Emanuel was consoled with the offer
of another tune:
“Mike
was a phenomenal person. He said to me, ‘I
got a song that’s better than that.’ I
said, ‘you got to be kidding me.’ But
when I heard More Love – that’s
exactly what it was. On the other side was A Letter
From Vietnam, which went over big. (DJ) Robin
Seymour used to love it... he played it everyday.”
It
was released in December of ‘68 after Mike
persuaded one of the Motor City’s impresarios,
Armen Boladian, to start a new record company and
it became the inaugural record on Armen’s Westbound
label.
At
the time The Magic Tones were also recording at Tera
Shirma but following an argument Mike asked Emanuel
to cut some songs they were scheduled to do. The
outcome was a second Westbound release titled “Never
My Love,” a pop standard that’s been
recorded by numerous groups including The Four Tops,
5th Dimension, Booker T & The MGs,
and Chill Factor.
Unfortunately
Emanuel’s great version followed in the wake
of Funkadelic’s hit, “I’ll Bet
You,” which after its July release eventually
entered the national charts in September. The upshot
was Emanuel’s 45 got relegated to Westbound’s
promotional back burner and he didn’t even
know it had been released until I recently told him.
With its wonderful string arrangement, polished production,
top-notch musicianship, plus Emanuel’s great
vocal delivery, the record deserved a much better
fate.
Another
one of Mike’s semi-obscure Detroit discs is
the Antone label pressing of “Pay Them No Mind,” sung
by Calvin Alexander with backing from The Soul Family.
The group was formerly The Versatones that recorded
for the Magic City label in 1967. They later became
Percy and Them, recording a sweet ballad for the
local Karen label in the early 70s and a great up-tempo
45 on the Roulette label. Singer Percy Hargrove couldn’t
remember when these two Antone recordings took place,
but my guess is around 1968 or ‘69.
Notes
thanks to Graham
Finch
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DESIGN
AND GRAPHICS BY
LOWELL BOILEAU
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