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Motown M 1055 (A), February 1964
b/w Right Now
(Written by Buck Ram and Ande Rand)
Motown boss Berry Gordy’s dreams of major league success were already starting to come true by the spring of 1964, but that didn’t stop him signing up showbiz veterans, one-hit wonders and washed-up former stars whenever he became aware of their availability.
Whether Gordy hoped to generate more hits, or just publicity and prestige for Motown, he was never slow to act; of the artists we’ve already covered, Andre Williams, Bunny Paul, Bobby Breen and Amos Milburn (just to name a few) were all Famous Before Motown and they all sank without trace upon arrival at Hitsville. Now, here’s Sammy Turner to continue that streak.
Sammy was briefly a star over the turn of the decade, scoring big hits for Big Top with covers of Lavender Blue, Paradise and Always, the first two quirky string-drenched productions showcasing his sweet, understated voice, the latter recast as a more energetic number in the Sam Cooke mould. It couldn’t last; Turner’s voice is hard to classify, never quite letting go, never quite putting across real feeling, and in a changing market moving away from crooners and towards more emotionally charged performers, his appeal turned out to be limited. The hits dried up, he left Big Top, and – as with Bobby Breen before him – he had been out of work for some time when Motown came calling.
Turner had some unspecified connection to the Serenaders, the NYC doo-wop group whose one and only Motown single, If Your Heart Says Yes, we’ve already encountered. The group featured songwriter-producers George Kerr and Sidney Barnes, who stuck with Motown’s fledgling New York City office on the other side of the glass once the Serenaders had split up (indeed, it seems entirely plausible that Motown NYC only signed the Serenaders in the first place to get Kerr and Barnes under contract). Sammy’s one and only Motown single (this one) was produced by Kerr and Barnes, and later Sammy ended up as guest lead vocalist on some unused Serenaders demos. Whatever the nature of the Turner/Serenaders connection, it’s likely to have been that connection which brought Sammy to Motown in the first place.
After cutting this record in New York, Turner went to Detroit and cut a veritable truckload of material that never saw the official light of day, some of it highly valued by collectors. A pity, then, that his only released Motown output was this anodyne Platters cover, supposedly in the vein of Sammy’s earlier hits but actually much softer and sappier than those, moving away from Sam Cooke territory and towards the supper-club set.
The arrangement is syrupy and leaden, while Sammy’s interpretation of the material rarely rises above the level of competent karaoke; indeed, it frequently doesn’t even get that far up the scoreboard, high notes getting horribly mangled (the magic that you DO) each and every time with a strangulated falsetto that’s unintentionally funny.
Really quite unimpressive, a sad waste of a good song (this was Motown’s one and only crack at doing Only You, trivia fans) and a once-fine singer. On this evidence, it’s no surprise that there were no further Motown singles released on Sammy Turner; half of this mark is down to affection for the Platters’ original.
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.
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Sammy Turner “Right Now” |
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DISCOVERING MOTOWN |
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Like the blog? Listen to our radio show! |
| Motown Junkies presents the finest Motown cuts, big hits and hard to find classics. Listen to all past episodes here. |
Motown Junkies 
You’ve been very busy – I like the new header design and overall look of the blog. Now, when and where can I purchase your book?
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I just found your blog a little over a week ago, and TCMS ’64 is the only volume I own (they’re expensive and I just wasn’t fanatic enough to start a collection), so I’m ready to throw some dissent in. Just not with this song. I listened to the cut this morning, and can’t say I see the point of releasing this rather weak cover.
I do look forward to sparring a bit on some of the upcoming releases. I have some likes that I’m not sure you’d agree with and you have some already up that I certainly have reservations about.
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Thanks, I’m glad you’re enjoying! If you ever disagree with something I’ve written, or spot a mistake, please don’t hesitate to call me on it – this is all highly subjective, and I’m always keen to hear other people’s opinions.
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The way I understand the story of Jobete Music company’s New York Office is as follows:
By early to mid 1963, Berry Gordy and his second wife, Raynoma, were not getting along well, especially (but not exclusively) in their working relationship at Motown. It seems that she wanted to be a lot more active in the everyday operations of Motown Records. But Berry wasn’t thrilled with what she had done on her own, to that point. Their views differed on several matters. In order to placate her desires, to a certain degree, and to get her “out of the way” (far from Motown’s Detroit office), he agreed to let her open a “branch office” of Motown’s music publishing company, Jobete Music, in New York. She suggested hiring veteran East Coast songwriter/producer, Eddie Singleton, to run the office jointly with her. Being originally from Washington, D.C., she had known Singleton from her younger days there, before moving to Detroit.
Once in New York, Raynoma and Eddie needed to hire a staff of songwriters, and producers to produce demo recordings of the songs for Motown to listen to and approve or reject, and also to be used to market these songs also to independent producers, to bring in additional revenue to Motown’s coffers. Singleton had worked some in New York, and suggested they sign George Kerr and Sidney Barnes (who had had already had a successful songwriting career(writing for their own group, The Serenaders (also including Timothy Wilson), as well as writing for outsiders), Margo, Margo and Medress (who also sang as The Tokens), George Clinton and his stable of writers (Tamala Lewis, Fuzzy Haskins, Roy Handy along with the other members of their two groups, The Parliaments and The Parlettes), and Gene Redd, Jr. and his staff of writers: Rose Marie McCoy, Cleveland Horn(e), James Crosby, Ray Evans and Randall Stewart. Crosby and Horne were members of The Prophets.
I believe that Raynoma and Eddie’s work to run the office and make executive decisions and market Jobete Music in the New York area left little time to produce the demos. So, George Clinton, George Kerr and Sidney Barnes and Gene Redd were the producers, and they needed to find the solo singers, groups and background singers to record their song demos. In addition to the artists that automatically came along with those producers, Carol Moore, Norma Jenkins, The Dolls. Sammy Turner, Carl Hall and Paul Martin and The Dolls were hired to sing on demos. I think that Sammy Turner (who was out of work at the time) may have answered an advert in the newspaper at the time, or he may have been brought in, having been previously acquainted with George Kerr (as everything he sang while at Motown was produced by Kerr and Barnes(as far as I Know), and Barnes had not been long in The New York Area, having migrated from Ohio).
Incidentally, I think that despite his lackluster job on his two released Motown sides, Sammy did a fantastic job as lead, backed by the great vocal harmonies of The Serenaders on “All I Have Left Are Memories”, recorded near the end of 1963. Unfortunately, it had too much of an old-fashioned Doo Wop style to be a decent seller by the beginning of 1964, when the popular music styles were changing so rapidly. So, it wasn’t released. I’m convinced that it would have done a lot better than “Only You”, which didn’t have the slightest bit of marketing push behind it. However, that difference probably wouldn’t have amounted to any significant sales. Confidentially, I don’t believe that Berry Gordy would have put much behind any of the productions that originated from the New York Office.
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I forgot to add that I don’t think that Berry Gordy decided to sign Sammy Turner off the street because his name might add prestige to Motown’s artist stable, and he had just become available. He’d been out of work for a while, and probably was just hired by Eddie Singleton to sing demo recordings.
I was told that Raynoma had promised several of the New York office demo singing artists (groups) that she’d push with Berry and Quality Control, for releases on Motown’s labels for them. George Clinton and George Kerr both confirmed that she had promised that to them for The Parliaments and The Serenaders. Likely that was also promised to Sammy and Roy Handy from the New York office. The same thing had occurred between the L.A. singing groups and demo singers and Hal Davis (The Lewis Sisters, The Vows, The Versatiles, Oma Heard, Gloria Jones, Mary Love, Pat Hunt, Jean King, Brenda and Patrice Holloway). Only some of them even got releases. Only Brenda Holloway had any push at all from Motown towards any record sales and a career.
It IS likely, however, that Berry only even “approved” of the scheduling of a release for Sammy because signing him might add a little prestige to Motown’s stable of artists. Although he was not about to put a lot of money and personnel effort into trying to make “Only You” a hit (because it was clearly a dud), he certainly wouldn’t have turned away any sales revenue coming from it because of people trying it because of the song’s popularity, Sammy Turner’s name and both of those factors in combination with the rising standing of The Motown label’s reputation.
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George Clinton insists that there was a number on V.I.P. allocated to the Parliaments’ “I Misjudged You”. When researching TCMS, Keith Hughes found no paperwork to corroborate this.
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Raynoma likely promised George that she would push for a release of The Parliaments’ “I Misjudged You”/That Was My Girl” . But, as we know, Motown never got as far as signing The Parliaments to a recording contract. In theory, a record could conceivably be scheduled before the artist’s signing (as planning had to be done well ahead for recording sessions, etc.) , but as you say, there was NEVER any documentation found on any schedule, nor of any artist signing .
I had access to all the lists that were found by 1980, and I never say any reference to a VIP record (or any other label release) scheduled for The Parliaments. I believe that is an “urban legend”, guessed by collectors, based on the fact that The Serenaders’ release was on VIP. However, Sammy Turner’s release was on Motown. No one knows on which label a Parliaments’ release would have been, HAD it been scheduled. I think things never got that far. Even if Berry would eventually have approved it, the whole thing is moot, because he closed down The Jobete Music NY office before the release could have occurred.
Collectors and Motown afficianados probably told George about the rumoured VIP scheduling many years later. Some collectors even “assigned” the “must have been scheduled” VIP scheduled release to one of the “missing” (unused) VIP numbers (probably on a personal record “wants list”). THAT may have been the origin of the urban legend.
I’ll bet that if someone had asked George Clinton in 1964 if Motown had scheduled a Parliaments’ release on VIP he’d have looked at the person as if he were completely insane.
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Thanks Robb, all very interesting as always! What does Miss Ray’s book say about all of this? (It’s been years since I’ve seen a copy.) Or is that where most of this information comes from?
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Hi Mr Nixon. Love the site. Please see my comments below re Rays book. You ought to write one !
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You’re pretty much reading it already!
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I haven’t read her book. I should probably read it. But then, I’ve heard that her “version” of what happened often differs from Berry’s, and from time to time from what Robert Bateman, Mickey Stevenson and others had said about those events. It would have been better if some dedicated Motown fans would have done research and written books about Motown’s Golden ’60s back in the ’70s when more of the documentation was still around, and things were still fresh in the minds of Motown’s people, and they were all alive to be interviewed. Many of those who are left don’t remember all these little, seemingly unimportant details anymore. But, of course, they are important to us. As I’ve said many times before, I didn’t want to bother the people I had access to, with questions, like a “fanboy” reporter for a hobbyist fanzine. I’m wondering now if I should have been bolder.
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I read Rays book and several others. Most of the Motown books I’ve read are full of soap opera tabloid stuff and not enough about the music. Rays book had some pretty disturbing personal stuff in it. I’m ashamed to say I read Tony Turners two books and felt like I needed to take a shower afterwards. Whoa. That’s why I liked your buddys book about Chicago soul. He stuck with the music and left peoples personals lives out of it. Sharon Davis Motown book is great. So is the one by David Morse. Nelson Georges book was good but he came off IMHO a bit too cynical. Gerald Posners book was awful – again IMHO.
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Never heard this record. I have to admit that I really liked his version of “Lavender Blue”. I wonder if a bigger label had gotten ahold of him if he would have had more hits. His voice reminds me of a cross between Nat Cole & Sam Cooke with some Jesse Belvin thrown in.
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Let this be a lesson to all the wanna-be Tony Wiliams’—-There is but one.
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At least Sammy sings, “Can make” instead of “Cand make.” That’s about it.
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