American Soul Man
MICKEY NIXES PICKETT, JANIE WEDS A FALCON
And so, at last, William “Mickey” Stevenson has been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
It’s taken a minute. He was, for instance, among the proposed nominees for the organisation’s honours in 2014. It’s also arguable that Stevenson’s co-authorship of “Dancing In The Street” should alone have earned him the accolade many moons ago.
No matter, it’s done now.
Two days after the SHOF ceremonies were held on June 16 in New York, Stevenson’s name was invoked across the Atlantic – this time in the context of his time as Motown Records’ A&R chief, and how, 60 years ago, he didn’t want to sign Wilson Pickett.
Mickey’s moment in the Songwriters Hall of Fame (photo: L. Busacca)
The occasion was a Q&A at the fifth Blackpool International Soul Festival, where yours truly discussed Hitsville: The Making of Motown with Northern Soul pioneers Richard Searling and Kev Roberts, and answered cut-through questions from a crowd in the Winter Gardens.
Stevenson figured prominently in that Motown film documentary, as well he should. It also helped that on camera, he’s candid, entertaining and witty – and, as a man in his eighties, looks remarkably well-preserved. (Doubtless the songwriting royalties have helped on that score.)
Previously, Blackpool welcomed Stevenson in person: he took part in the soul festival’s 2016 edition, talking about his extraordinary life and times in the music business. On that occasion, he mentioned the Wicked Pickett.
Last week in Lancashire, when a questioner raised the subject again, I remembered that Stevenson had once explained the circumstances to me. Pickett belonged to the Detroit-based Falcons – whose 1962 soul milestone, “I Found A Love,” featured his peerless lead vocal – but he was trying to advance a solo career. Motown had been making its mark in the pop market, and refining its A&R interests and identity under Stevenson.
“Yes, I turned down Wilson Pickett,” he recalled. “Berry Gordy said, ‘Why’d you do that?’ I said, ‘Man, because he came to change our thing, and once he starts spoiling the apples in the barrel, people are going to start looking at him like he’s somebody.’ And it was going to make my job harder. I didn’t need that shit.”
Pickett’s prickly persona was remembered, too, in Mary Wilson’s autobiography, Dreamgirl. Before signing to Motown, she and her fellow Primettes were about to record for Motor City music maven Robert West, in a basement studio. “When we walked in, Wilson Pickett was there with the Falcons. He looked and acted pretty much the same as he does now; he was what we considered a real street guy.”
As the 1950s segued into the ’60s, Stevenson would likely have known about Pickett. He joined the Falcons in 1960 under contract to West, whose several Detroit labels (Silhouette, Kudo, Flick) had released their earlier 45s. In 1962, another West imprint, Lu-Pine, shipped the group’s “I Found A Love” and saw it soar into the R&B Top 10.
CLIMBING THE HUSTLERS’ LADDER
Later, the singer sought the advice of Wilbur Golden, described in Tony Fletcher’s authoritative In the Midnight Hour: The Life & Soul of Wilson Pickett as “a numbers runner in the process of working his way up the hustlers’ ladder in what seemed the most obviously lucrative fashion in Detroit at the time: by establishing an independent record label.” Golden’s outfit was Correc-Tone Recording, located on Detroit’s 12th Street, and when Pickett quit the Falcons, he joined the label for his first solo (and self-penned) single, “My Heart Belongs To You,” issued in 1962.
Author Fletcher contends that had Mickey Stevenson not been hired by Berry Gordy, he might have gone into business with Wilbur Golden. In his place, according to Fletcher’s book, Stevenson sent two Motowners, Sonny Sanders and Robert Bateman, over to Correc-Tone. “In March, Golden brought his team together at the 12th Street studio Stevenson had helped to install, and, with various members of the future ‘Funk Brothers’ providing instrumentation and Motown session singers the Andantes providing female backing vocals, they recorded Pickett’s debut solo single.”
What’s not clear is whether Stevenson declined to sign Pickett to Motown before or after the Correc-Tone session, and he makes no mention of any of it in his autobiography, The A&R Man.
Wilson’s one and only Motown album
For their part, the Falcons had existing connections to Berry Gordy’s circle. In 1958, the group – before Pickett joined – cut “This Heart Of Mine,” a song co-written by Gordy and Roquel (Billy) Davis, and produced by the latter. In addition, the Falcons’ guitarist, Lance Finney, appears to have been married at some point to Gordy acolyte Janie Bradford – or, at least, she administered Jobete Music paperwork under the name “Janie Finney.” It’s that signature on the historic 1964 contracts which gave Capitol Records a discounted royalty for the Beatles’ recordings of three Jobete songs: “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me,” “Please Mr. Postman” and “Money (That’s What I Want).”
Wilson Pickett, meanwhile, had found his way after Correc-Tone (and Lloyd Price’s Double-L label) to Atlantic Records. By 1965, his career exploded there with “In The Midnight Hour,” followed by a succession of era-defining soul sides, such as “634-5789 (Soulsville U.S.A.),” “Mustang Sally” and “Funky Broadway.” Come the ’70s, he scored three consecutive Top 20 entries on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Engine Number 9,” “Don’t Let The Green Grass Fool You” and “Don’t Knock My Love – Pt. 1.”
Yet the Wicked One did eventually sign to Motown, in 1987. By then, the company was 15 years into its Los Angeles life, and label president Jay Lasker had recruited Russ Regan to head the A&R team. (Regan’s resume included a spell promoting “Please Mr. Postman” and other early Hitsville hits while working for an independent distributor in California.) Biographer Tony Fletcher suggests that Gordy himself heard a Pickett demo, “Don’t Turn Away,” and encouraged the deal.
Robert Margouleff – he of Stevie Wonder distinction – was drafted as the producer, and the resulting American Soul Man album, including a six-minute remake of “In The Midnight Hour,” went to market in August of ’87. The project proved to be a challenge for Margouleff, and then for Motown’s promotion team; the album managed no more than one week on the Billboard R&B charts.
“His life was chaotic,” the producer explained to Fletcher. “He was an alcoholic. Really was. Not in control of his own role. And that’s the reason he didn’t make records for years.” Moreover, said Margouleff, “he did not get along very well with [the other] people at the record company. I think they wanted to be away from Wilson as soon as they possibly could do so.”
Perhaps Mickey Stevenson’s instincts were right in the first place.
Music notes: Wilson Pickett’s Motown album doesn’t appear to be available on streaming services, although one track from American Soul Man, the Berry Gordy-favoured “Don’t Turn Away,” can be found on YouTube, as linked above. Also accessible via YouTube (per the link above) is the singer’s first solo single, “My Heart Belongs To You.” A fine source of the Falcons’ work, including music made before, during and after Pickett’s tenure, is Soul On Fire: The Detroit Soul Story 1957-1977. This 3CD set was originally released in 2017, and is spotlighted here; today, it’s also available on digital platforms such as Spotify. Meanwhile, this West Grand playlist includes the flip of Pickett’s first 45 (“Let Me Be Your Boy”), as well as several Falcons sides, among them the Gordy co-write (“This Heart Of Mine”). The final selection is “She Said Yes,” a minor R&B hit in 1970, recorded in Muscle Shoals and written by Pickett, Don Covay, Johnny Nash and…Mickey Stevenson. As for the matter of Mickey’s own vocal abilities, judge for yourself via his 1972 album, Here I Am, which was reissued in 2009, and can be found digitally here.