Although
they were inevitably mistaken for Gladys Knight's Pips, The
Peps were vocally more akin to The Impressions. But
pigeonholing them as another opportunistic copycat group
would be a mistake; their high-energy live performances
define the 60's all-singing-all-dancing groups that
relentlessly toured the USA during that go-go decade.
The trio turned
professional at Thelma Records around 1962, cutting a few
45s and doing background on various sessions. Before that
they were all involved in singing around Detroit: Ronnie
Abner used to be in The Vibratones, "Little Joe" Harris sang
lead on one of Robert West's Bumble Bee label records -
"Trouble In A Candy Store" - and Tommy Hester had won talent
show contests during the late 50s and sang with The
Turnpikes. Initially he was the group's lead singer and
Ronnie acknowledged: "Tommy was a singer's singer. he'd
bring tears to your eyes."
They joined
Mike's D-Town setup around 1965 with a hard-earned
reputation as one of the Motor City's liveliest acts and
weren't labelled Fabulous for nothing. Back-flips, jumps,
spins and splits peppered their live shows and Ronnie
explained how they inadvertently got likened to Curtis
Mayfield's seminal group:
"Tommy had the
soft, high tenor, I had the soft high tenor and Joe had the
Jerry-Butler, Fred-Cash sound, so we sounded like The
Impressions. in fact our range was higher than theirs. We do
one Impressions' song a show, and the rest is us. But
record-wise. everybody wanted us to sound like The
Impressions!
During their
spell at Thelma they travelled down to Dayton, Ohio where
they took root for about a year and started to develop an
identity. They fine tuned their slick moves and learned the
ropes of performing while singing with Robert Ward's
accomplished group, The Ohio Untouchables. Once they were
back in Detroit they continued to add finishing touches to
their routine:
"Ziggy Johnson
was a choreographer and a mentor of ours. He taught us how
to put a good show together and how to be a good
nightclub-act. There was a teenage nightclub on Woodward
called The Village, and we worked there. We did everything.
we MC-ed, we worked the lights and we background all the
single artists. We basically managed ourselves. We all had
our functions; Tommy was the stabilizer, Joe was about the
money, which was cool, 'cause we needed someone to be that
way. My thing was always the show; I never did care about
the money. It's always been the show with me. If we got
paid: good. If we didn't paid.(shrugs). At first we started
out getting what we could, y'know - a hundred bucks a piece
a week - working six nights a week - three shows a night. We
were gypsies with records. And a lot of stuff I learned from
the 50's groups, in terms of visual performance, I wouldn't
throw 'em away. Like the approach to comedy. y'know,
improv's. Bang! In the middle of a song. if you feel like
telling a joke: Who cares? Do it! It got us in to the best
clubs in the city. We had the kind of show that it was hard
to come on behind us. When we would do the Apollo - with the
battle of the groups - I can only think of one other group
that didn't get tired by the end of the week, and that was
The O'Jays. Everybody else, you could see the wear and tear
on them. We would get stronger. because we worked that way,
constantly."
Their first
D-Town 45 was a very un-Impressions-sounding cover of
"Detroit Michigan." But the next release had a definite
Curtis Mayfield ring to it, a wonderful ballad called "This
I Pray" which Ronnie wrote. According to the label his
co-writer was C. Bell and so I asked him about the
ubiquitous name:
"That's Mike
Hanks - trust me!" adding, "I wrote that in the studio and
we brought the Ohio Untouchables to do that session."
The group
cut a wall-to-wall drum and bass Wheelsville 45, "Love Of My
Life," that was also released in '65. Ronnie penned and sang
lead on "My Love Looks Good On You" - their up-tempo, 1966,
D-Town disc - and by then guitarist "Little Charlie" Herndon
had become an integral part of the group's act and they were
sometimes billed as The Four Peps. They gradually drifted
away from Mike and started to revolve around Pete Hall, whom
Ronnie remembered sent them down to Memphis to add some
southern-soul flavor to their recordings:
"Gypsy Woman, Why Are You Blowing My Mind - that was with
Booker T and the Stax guys. That was the last session we
did."
Their
version of "Gypsy Woman" was released on Premium Stuff and
another admiral cover of an Impressions' classic, "I've Been
Trying," was probably cut at the same time. This latter song
was released on the Wee 3 label in 1967 and that May they
paraded it at Detroit's famed Chit Chat Lounge where the
resident Funk Brothers backed them.
But the strain
of continually being on the road was inevitably taking its
toll and the group's fraternity was paying the price. They
split up and reformed a few times in the late 60s as the
waning popularity of sharp-suited, back-flipping performers
was compounded by personnel problems. It wasn't easy to
adjust to the cosmic-funk era:
"We started
taking ourselves for granted. We hurt ourselves; we didn't
grow," Ronnie readily admitted. "Plus the fact that we
weren't getting along. Not Tommy and myself, me and Joe.
serious clashes! I'm hot-tempered and he's hot tempered."
They tried to
reinvent themselves by changing their name to Smoke Heat And
Fire - perhaps a subconscious reflection of Ronnie and Joe's
heated arguments - and continued gigging around Detroit. And
although Motown had periodically invited them to join
Hitsville's stack of talent, they'd steadfastly refused to
sign to simply end up on the proverbial shelf. But after
almost a decade of singing together Joe eventually left in
1971 to front The Undisputed Truth, hitting the big-time
with Norman Whitfield's sublime "Smiling Faces Sometimes."
Notes thanks to Graham
Finch
image must not be
reproduced, used or copied photograph
credits at end of webisode
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DESIGN AND
GRAPHICS BY
LOWELL BOILEAU
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