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Divinity 99004 (A), July 1962
b/w Pilgrim Of Sorrow
(Written by James Herndon)
By the middle of 1962, Berry Gordy had managed to inaugurate no less than four new labels – Gordy and Mel-o-dy for R&B, Workshop Jazz for, er, jazz, and now Divinity for gospel.
Attracted less by the social brownie points to be had, and more by the relatively easy and predictably steady (if unspectacular) cash to be made from putting out overtly religious music, Motown had already released a number of gospel singles – the Golden Harmoneers’ I Am Bound, the Gospel Stars’ He Lifted Me, Rev. Columbus Mann’s They Shall Be Mine – and now that the “main” Motown labels were starting to pick up a reputation for crossover R&B hits, it was decided that gospel really needed its own outlet away from all that noisy secular stuff.
Alas, although the Divinity Records project was greenlit at a time when Berry Gordy was still hedging his bets, looking for hits in every direction and going after audiences from all walks of life, by the time the first single came to be released, priorities had shifted somewhat. With the Marvelettes, Miracles, Mary Wells and Marvin Gaye (plus some other acts not starting with “M”) all striking chart gold, there really wasn’t the need to chase the steady trickle of sales, and subsequent financial security, that gospel brought. Divinity Records lasted less than a year, and put out a grand total of four records.
Still, things started out promisingly enough with this entertaining pair of sides, which are undoubtedly the best two gospel records Motown had thus far released. This A-side isn’t a patch on the B-side for my money, but they’re both still rather fine.
Motown writer and organist George Fowler, once a writing partner of Brian Holland (most notably on the excellently-named Henry Lumpkin’s splendid I’ve Got A Notion), had been put in charge of the Divinity imprint; his Motown career never really recovered. Despite Motown having previously recorded the well-known and experienced Gospel Stars (indeed, they’d been one of the first groups ever to release a Motown album, 1961’s The Great Gospel Stars), the first record Fowler lined up for release was by The Wright Specials, who happened to feature his brother Ernest on piano.
There’s no nepotism here, though. Sponsored by the legendary Rev. James Cleveland, the King of Gospel himself (the “Wright” in the title was for their manager, Thomas Wright, not their preacher and mentor), and heavily associated with the Caravans, another group legendary in gospel circles, the Wright Specials had bona fide gospel credentials.
Of rather more historical interest to Motown nerds like me is the fact that the group also featured one Agatha Weston, a teenage vocalist later signed to Motown in her own right under the name “Kim Weston” (and later still Mrs Mickey Stevenson into the bargain). Maddeningly, though, it seems almost certain Kim didn’t actually record with the Wright Specials, only appearing in live performances, meaning that although both That’s What He Is To Me and the B-side feature a young female vocalist with a ferocious voice that could stop traffic at seventy paces, historians don’t seem to know who she is.
It’s infuriating, because she’s the most striking thing on both sides of this record, whoever she is. She’s given more of a lead here than on the B-side, but she’s also less disciplined, more strident, almost out of control in places, ultimately to the detriment of the record. Still, the moments when she completely lets go – check out the full-on scream of YEAH!!! at 1:53 – are positively hair-raising.
It’s a good little record, this. Lyrically, it falls into the “praise be to God” category of gospel songs, an exploration of the singer’s personal relationship with the Almighty that seems curiously ill-suited to the communal experience of a group vocal. Still, it has a simple, enjoyable tune, which does what it wants to do and gets the reaction it’s looking for, and the power of that woman’s voice means it’s certainly sold well enough. It’s also brisk – the song is just over two minutes long, but whizzes by at such a lick that it feels barely half of that.
Nice enough, clumsy in places, surprisingly powerful in others – but still the best of Motown’s gospel efforts so far.
Caravans pianist James Herndon is credited with writing both sides of this, but the B-side is definitely a public domain spiritual, and so I’m not sure whether this is an original song or just a riff on an existing standard.
(Oh yeah, collectors and nerds beware: the catalogue number implies this should be the fourth release on the Divinity label, but it was in fact the first; numbers 99001 through 99003 were never assigned.)
MOTOWN JUNKIES VERDICT
(I’ve had MY say, now it’s your turn. Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment, or click the thumbs at the bottom there. Dissent is encouraged!)
You’re reading Motown Junkies, an attempt to review every Motown A- and B-side ever released. Click on the “previous” and “next” buttons below to go back and forth through the catalogue, or visit the Master Index for a full list of reviews so far.
(Or maybe you’re only interested in the Wright Specials? Click for more.)
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| Marvin Gaye “It Hurt Me Too” |
The Wright Specials “Pilgrim Of Sorrow” |
Motown Junkies 
The tragedy is that there were a whole album’s worth of recordings by a great local Detroit Gospel group called The Pronouns, some of which blow all the other Motown Gospel recordings away. It’s a shame that Divinity Records didn’t last longer.
By the way, only 3 of the four assigned Divinity records were pressed as far as we know. To my knowledge, the Liz Lands 45 was never pressed. There wasn’t a copy of it in The Motown Record File, nor in the Jobete Music Record file. The Frank Wilson on Soul 35019 and Andantes on VIP 25006 had only the 6 pressing plant test copies pressed (as far as is known), and yet those 2 had records filed in both files.
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The Pronouns, eh? I’ve never even heard the name, but based on your recommendation I’m keen to investigate; how would one go about hearing these records?
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Wow – actually, Universal seems to have uploaded a whole bunch of it: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=universal+music+group+unreleased+gospel
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Is something missing at the end of Para 6 (“There’s no nepo…”) ??? Seems up in the air, as it stands right now.
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Huh! Yes, it’s eaten the end of my sentence. Hold on, I’ll try and reconstruct it. Good spot!
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For Robb Klein ——–
There were FIVE “assigned” Divinity singles that I know of – seems that’s one more than you do đŸ™‚
— this single, and in 1963 a 2nd 45 by The Wright Specials (99 And A Half is my own particular favorite of them all), one each from The Gospel Stars and The Burnadettes, plus of course the unreleased Liz Lands 45.
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I apologize for leaving a comment unrelated to the current post. I’m enjoying your reviews of the Complete Motown Singles very much. As it’s going to be quite some time before you get to this song, I was wondering if you could just tell me if the members of the Hit Pack (Never Say No To Your Baby) were moonlighting from another Motown group?
I placed an order for The Complete Motown Singles 1965 almost a year ago, but it seems that it is only available for downloading on various sites at this point. Thanks very much for any information you can provide.
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Hi Marie,
It will indeed be quite a while before I get to March 1965, and I haven’t had a chance to research the Hit Pack properly yet, so can only really go on what’s listed in the liner notes to The Complete Motown Singles: Volume 5 and a couple of the books I have lying around. Some research (by Nick Brown) suggested the Hit Pack were “an obscure white group”, but that seems to be based on a bootleg version of the “Never Say No To Your Baby” track that was missing a lead vocal – the lead singer certainly doesn’t sound Caucasian to me, though this is obviously just pure conjecture on my part! The TCMS 5 liner notes hazard a guess that the four members were Robert Dobyne, Charles Jones, Robert Walker and Robert Staunton (those latter two being well-known mid-Sixties Motown producers, and all four occasionally being credited as Motown songwriters), on the basis that those four guys are listed as the songwriters of the only known Motown Hit Pack material. Other accounts have the name being used as a cover – but not usually from “another Motown group”, but rather the house band, the Funk Brothers.
The general consensus now seems to be that Robert Dobyne was involved in some way, and to my ears – comparing the Hit Pack record to the newly-released solo cut “All I Need Is A Chance” on A Cellarful of Motown Volume 4, he sounds like the lead singer on both records.
There’s a YouTube channel by someone calling themselves “SirDobyne” who claims to be Robert Dobyne (http://www.youtube.com/user/SirDobyne), and who directly claims to have sung lead on the Hit Pack record, as part of a lengthy, rambling rant that doesn’t make a great deal of sense, all told (I worry it might be gone at any time, so I’m quoting it in its entirety here as at the time of writing (29th September 2010) because it’s potentially useful as a source, not because I believe any of the other barking mad claims made therein):
“I am Robert Dobyne. I live in Chicago,Illinois. I am on the BLACK LIST, been on the black list before the president OBAMA was born. So anything that I say is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I am nothing but old school and I am a slave to master Berry Gordy and Ralph Salsa, Charlie Koppleman, Don Ruben, Arti Ripp, Henry Allen, Don Kursner, Larry Butler, Jerry Butler, Fredrick Knight,William “Smokie” Robinson, Eugene Records (decested), Curtis Mayfield(decested), Flip Wilson (decested), Lou Rolse(decested),Jackie Wilson(decested),Robert Stunton(unknown where about), and Robert Walker( unknown where about). All of these people and MORE that i have not thought of at this time have participated in keeping me from telling the world my story. You can hear my story and my music weekly, monthly,yearly, and to infinity. It may not be on YOUTUBE or MYSPACE but you will be able to hear my story by keeping in touch. I like to begin by saying I was a motown recording artist in the year 1964 until 65′ and during that time my incounter with Berry Gordy. I was in his office at motown and he threatend to kill me if I tried to take his company. All of this was a setup and words passed out to Mr, Gordy that I was going to take his company. He told me that Robert Stunton and Robert Walker told him that I was going to take his company. I pleeded with Mr. Gordy thatI did not know any thing about what he was saying. He put a gun to my head and told me I better tell him the truth then he said, “wait open your mouth”. Then he put the barrel of the gun in my mouth and told me he could kill me and won’t nothing be said because I sneaked in to see him and had no appointment to see him. Let me explain how I sneaked in. After Stunton and Walker told me that they pulled the hit pack which was a group signed to soul records, I Robert Dobyne lead singer of the group the record never say no to your baby wanted to know why he took it off the air. So they told me that I had to ask Mr. Gordy not telling me they had spreaded the word that I was going to take his company. So i sat outside the house were his office used to be for now they have torn it down but back then I sat on the stoot to the front door which had a buzz in door to get inside. I sat out there for a couple of hours or so until i got the nerve to put my feet at the door to keep it from closing when someone came out. Once that happend I eased upstairs. Once up to the top and into the receptionist desk, the woman asked,” How did you get up here Dobyne…i didn’t buzz you in.” After I was explaining to her that I wanted to see Mr. Gordy he walked to the door and asked me what are you doing here. I told him that I had to talk to him concerning our record. He said to me to give him a minute and he would see me.Now this is why he said he can kill me and no one would do a thing about it. So I went on and pleeded with him that I did not know anything about taking his company. After Mr. Gordy knocked me around with his fist 3 to 4 times in the face he went on to tell me that I was his SLAVE and I would never be free from him and he was going to get to the bottom of this. He then told me that other companies was jealous of what he was doing with his company and they were sending all kinds of con artist and scammers to take hitsville. They tried with Mary Wells. He said to me that since she left me she has not had one hit record and thats because I know how to kill without using my hand. Mary Wells was my slave he went on to say that Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Marve Johnson, Jimmy Ruffin, Shorty Long, The 4 tops, The Miricales, The Spinners, The Marvelettes, The Vandellas, The Supremes, and everybody that he had was his slaves and that I was going to do whatever he wanted me to do. He was going to give me one more chance to prove myself that I am not there to take his company. Then, he told me he would give me a position with the contours singing the hit song DO YOU LOVE ME because Robert (not me) the lead singer was drugging himself out and he needed to be replaced so I would be the one to replace him. That is all I have for you at this particular moment but like I said form the top everyday, every week, every month, and every year you will hear the truth the whold truth and nothing but the truth”
O-kayyy then. But yeah, my money is on Dobyne as lead singer, and the other guys listed by TCMS 5 as the other group members.
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Nixon, I am so grateful to you for responding to my query. I didn’t expect such an in-depth reply. Thanks very much for all of this work that you’re doing.
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Maybe you can move this to the “Never Say No to Your Baby” review when we get there. From memory Staunton and Walker share composer credits on the Hit Pack’s surf/ drag release on Colpix the previous year, but there’s no mention of Dobyne. The lead on that record sounds white, and I can remember a British review of “Never Say No to Your Baby”” stating that the group was white. I’ll send you as scan of the Colpix release when I can.
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It’s a strange coincidence that this release was numbered 99004 when there had already been the release of the three gospel records mentioned above. Is it possible that there had been the intention to re-issue them on Divinity?
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I hadn’t thought of that before, but it seems extremely likely!
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Strangely enough the number on the first release on Harvey Fuqua’s gospel label also ends in 4 [Remember Judgment Day/ Jordan River – The Sensational Jubilettes (Message 1234)]. It could be a coincidence, but possibly not using the numbers 1 – 3 is a cryptic acknowledgment to the Trinity.
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There are more questions than answers. Divinity is the only label that includes the words “Manufactured by…”
Does this imply that Berry Gordy was not the sole owner?
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I don’t think so – Motown didn’t actually manufacture records in the technical sense, so it would be strange for an outside owner or co-owner to simply credit Motown for arranging to have the records pressed up. More likely that it was just an attempt to provide “distance” between the increasingly famous, and famously secular, Motown empire and these gospel records, to avoid literally scaring off God-fearing Americans – and there were a lot of them – who wouldn’t have R&B records in the house. Far better to pass Divinity off as a separate label that just happened to share manufacturing arrangements with Motown, rather than a wholly-owned subsidiary label using Motown’s producers, writers, engineers, studios, arrangers, publishers, distributors etc.
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Yes, I counted wrong. There were 4 Divinity singles released, and one unreleased. I had always heard that The Hit Pack was a Caucasian group, and their Colpix record leaves no doubt that that is true. Staunton and Walker were their writers. But it is only conjecture (I believe to be inaccurate) that they, and/or Dobyne, were group members. I’m very interested in how they, and The Freeman Brothers (outof New York?) were brought into Motown.
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If the Colpix “Hit Pack” are the same people as the Motown “Hit Pack”, of course. The two records don’t sound particularly similar, while Never Say No… DOES sound a lot like Robert Dobyne’s Cellarful effort to me. Combined with SirDobyne’s screed above, I wonder if “the Hit Pack” was just a “brand name” for Staunton and Walker’s productions regardless of who was actually on the records?
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That theory is quite likely. I suspect that “The Hit Pack” was something akin to “The Rayber Voices”. It was a Caucasian “Surf” group (possibly with Staunton and Walker joining in) for Colpix, and Staunton, Walker and Charles Jones backing Robert Dobyne for Motown, making a studio guide demo for the eventual top tier Motown artist who would get the release. But, for whatever reason, Berry Gordy had the “demo version” released, to placate Staunton and Walker (to keep them from leaving Motown in disgust). I think they must have been disappointed in how few of their songs got heavily-marketed releases.
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OH MY GOD
NO PUN INTENDED
!!!!!!!
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