I have worked with very few people in my life as talented as Bobby Taylor. Apart from possessing one of the greatest soul voices in the history of mankind, his writing skills are awesome, and at Motorcity, he co-wrote with me for The Elgins, Mary Wells, Rare Earth, and so so many others, often turning his work around overnight. Bobby Taylor sits over morning coffee and talks of the magical days of Motown music in the ’60s, when black pop artists from the Detroit label were vaulting over the recording race barrier and galloping through the white market. Taylor had already signed his own group with Motown: Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers. Now, in the summer of ’68, he brought in a group of young kids he wanted to introduce to Motown owner Berry Gordy, the Jackson 5. It should not be surprising that Bobby Taylor was somewhere in the Jackson 5 mix. The 63-year-old singer/composer/producer had only one big hit himself–“Does Your Mama Know About Me?” in the mid-’60s–but he seems to have hung out with practically every important R&B and pop artist of the second half of the 20th century. As a child prodigy, Taylor grew up in a Washington, D.C. housing project, “doo-wopping” on street corners with a long, skinny kid named Marvin Gaye; played with Louis Jordan; hung out with Big Mama Thornton; performed on TV on Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour alongside good friend Gladys Knight; formed Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers up in Canada with guitarist and backup vocalist Tommy Chong (who later turned to comedy with Cheech Marin); once fired a then-unknown guitarist named Jimi Hendrix because “his solos went on too long, like about a half an hour, and he played his guitar so loud you couldn’t hear the rest of the band”; toured for a while with George Clinton; played command performances for the Queen of England and “that guy with the big nose in France” (Charles de Gaulle); and got discovered for Motown by Mary Wilson and Flo Ballard of the Supremes. Bobby recorded three albums for Motown, and recently had all his unreleased tracks released in the U.K. on a new CD. He is constantly remembered for his Northern Soul classics like “Oh I’ve Been Blessed” and the incredibly rare single on Mowest, “Just A Little Bit Closer”, but the killer was the album track “Don’t Be Afraid” which is beloved as one of the greatest classics. But around 1970, Motown’s hold on its great artists began to weaken. “Berry Gordy pulled the hooks on me in 1971,” Taylor says. He left the company, suing for unpaid royalties. Taylor says that he won the suit, but has still not gotten his money. Bobby recorded for Playboy, Epic, Philadelphia International, and made a whole album for Motorcity, including this fabulous remake of his biggest Motown hit. But for me, his best will always be “Find My Way Back”, which is probably the single best vocal I have ever had the privilege of recording in my entire life.
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