Revilot Records was operational from 1966 to 1969, releasing around twenty-five singles. It was set up by LeBaron Taylor and Don Davis in Detroit as part of their production company Solid Hitbound Productions. Many of the Revilot recordings have the bouncy bass lines and bright horns typical of Motown. The arrangers also made frequent use of tambourines! The earliest Revilot releases came from Darrell Banks and Rose Battiste.
Darrell Banks (originally Darrell Eubanks) was born in Mansfield, Ohio, in 1937, grew up in Buffalo, New York, and came to Detroit to build a career in music. “Open the Door to Your Heart” was his first recording, released in May, of a song that he had written with his friend Donnie Elbert, although Banks tried to claim that he alone was the composer. Production was the work of Solid Hitbound Productions (Don Davis and LeBaron Taylor). The single made an immediate impact, climbing to number twenty-seven on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart and number two on the Billboard R&B Singles chart. It is a Motown-style ballad that showcases Banks’ sweet tenor voice. What a good start for Revilot!
A follow-up single, “Somebody (Somewhere) Needs You”, was issued later in 1966, once more produced by Davis and Taylor. The song was in fact a joint composition by the Motown duo Marc Gordon and Frank Wilson. It was a chance for Banks to shine again, as the single charted to number thirty-four on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart and number fifty-five on the Billboard R&B Singles chart. The B-side is actually better. “Baby What’cha Got (For Me)” was co-written by the Golden World team of Edwin Starr, J.J. Barnes and Sonny Sanders. The arrangement and the backing vocals lift the song in a powerful way.
Banks then switched to Atlantic’s ATCO label for his next releases and later to Stax, to team up with Don Davis again, but he had no further chart success. In 1970 he was shot dead by an off-duty policeman, when he got into an argument with his girlfriend, with whom the police officer was involved.
Three excellent compilations of his songs have been issued in the UK. The first by Goldmine Soul Supply, entitled “The Lost Soul”, in 1997, and the second “Open The Door To Your Heart: The Best of Darrell Banks” by Connoisseur Collection in 2000. The third, issued on Ace Records UK on their Kent label, is a compilation of the Don Davis productions at Stax.
“I’m The One Who Loves You – The Volt Recordings” on the Kent label
Photo: Album Cover image courtesy of Ace Records (UK)
In 2014 a copy of Banks’ first single sold for £14,000 in the UK. “Open The Door To Your Heart” had been released in the UK in 1966 on the London Records label. When EMI took over UK distribution, the single was re-issued on the Stateside label and the London singles were destroyed. Just a few had been sold, and only one was known in 2014. It is a true collectors’ item. It is also one of the best examples of Detroit Soul!
Rose Battiste was born in Detroit in 1947. Encouraged by her mother, she went to Hitsville’s Studio A for an audition in the early days of Motown. Her cousin Freddie Gorman was already working there, but the visit still came to nothing. Her first recording took place at Continental Studio a few years later, when she cut “I’m Yours For A Lifetime” with Don Mancha, at the age of fifteen.
A year later, upon leaving school, she recorded a single “I Can’t Leave You” for Thelma Records at United Sound Studios, working with Don Davis and Joey Kingfish. Soon after that, she followed Don Davis to Golden World Records, where she cut one single on the Ric-Tic label in 1965 (“That’s What He Told Me”) and one on Golden World in 1966 (“Sweetheart Darling”). When Berry Gordy bought Golden World in September 1966, Battiste followed Don Davis once more and cut two further singles on Davis’ Revilot label, “I Miss My Baby” and “I Still Wait For You”.
Battiste has a powerful voice and is at her best on the Revilot songs, belting out up-tempo Northern Soul tracks. The B-sides are just as good, with “Hit & Run” the stand-out. It was co-written by Cody Black and George McGregor and produced by Don Davis and McGregor.
Battiste went on to work at Motown as an office typist in 1970, but she did make a few recordings there too. Sadly, they have never been released.
Little Sonny made three singles for Revilot, two in 1967 and one in 1969. All three were written by Little Sonny himself, credited by his real name of Aaron Willis. The songs are Blues-based and feature Little Sonny playing harmonica.
The Parliaments switched from Golden World and quickly became Revilot’s top act, when their first single on the label climbed to number twenty on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart and number three on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart. The song in question “(I Wanna) Testify” wasn’t actually a Parliaments’ performance. Clinton had sung on the recording backed by session singers, as the rest of the band couldn’t get to Detroit. When it was time to tour the song, Clinton put together a bigger band, including five vocalists and five backing musicians, foreshadowing later developments.
Four more Revilot singles followed, all featuring Clinton in the writing and production credits, often alongside Pat or Tamala Lewis and LeBaron Taylor on the production side. Most of the tracks are conventional and offer little of interest. None sold well, but the B-side of his last Revilot release, “I’ll Wait”, shows signs that Clinton was evolving a new sound that finally emerged in 1970 with the formation of Parliament and Funkadelic, after Revilot had been declared bankrupt.
In addition to his solo work, J.J. Barnes was also a member of the Holidays, a vocal group that had a hit in 1966 with a Don Davis song “I’ll Love You Forever”, which reached number seven on the Billboard R&B Singles chart. The group, which featured Edwin Starr and Steve Mancha, moved to Revilot in 1967, for the release of “I Know She Cares”, a song co-written by Barnes, Davis and Lois Reeves, arranged by Sonny Sanders and produced by Davis and Taylor. In 1969, another Revilot release, “All That Is Required (Is You)”, is credited to the Holidays, but it is not sung by any of the trio mentioned above, as the four singers are all new. It was one of the last releases on the label.
