Marv Johnson was born in Detroit in 1938. He grew up listening to Blues and Gospel music, but his first venture into the world of professional music came in the mid-fifties, when he joined a Doo-Wop group called the Junior Serenaders. Berry Gordy heard the group and, as we have seen, invited Johnson to cut a song for his new Tamla label, with national release assured by United Artists. “Come to Me” entered the Billboard R&B Singles chart, reaching number six, and also peaked at number thirty on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart. It was a good start for the new label.
On the strength of this success, Johnson signed a contract with United Artists, although he continued to write songs and record with Berry Gordy in Motown’s Studio A. He released three albums on United Artists, plus a series of singles, between 1959 and 1962, with nine chart hits all written or co-written and produced by Gordy. Two of the singles sold over a million copies: “You Got What It Takes” reached number ten on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart, number two on the Billboard R&B Singles chart, and number seven in the UK, while “(You’ve Got To) Move Two Mountains” reached number twenty on the Billboard Hot 100 and number twelve on the R&B chart. Several of Johnson’s early singles were also very popular in Australia.
After 1961, Johnson’s releases failed to make the charts, despite three singles produced by Gordy and three more produced by Motown’s Mickey Stevenson. United Artists released him in the mid-sixties, so later singles were released on the Gordy label in the USA and on the Tamla Motown label in the UK, with just one R&B chart entry in America in 1966 and two chart entries in the UK in 1969. Despite this lack of success, Johnson remained at Motown, working in sales and marketing, whilst continuing to write songs for other artists.
Two noteworthy albums by Johnson have been released in the UK. The first in 1995 is a solo album of new songs released by Northern Soul DJ Ian Levine on his Motorcity label, entitled “The Very Best”. The second is a compilation of all Johnson’s Gordy Records songs, released in 2011 by Ace Records UK on their Kent Soul imprint, entitled “I’ll Pick A Rose For My Rose – The Complete Motown Recordings 1964-1971”. It contains several previously unreleased tracks.
Marv Johnson died at the age of fifty-four in 1993.
Marv Johnson was the first artist to have a single issued on the Tamla label, but there is another artist who has a claim to fame, Wade Jones. Around the same time as Tamla Records was being set up, Gordy also set up Rayber Records. The name derives from Raynoma Liles (who later married Berry Gordy) and Berry. Only one single was issued, Wade Jones’ own composition “I Can’t Concentrate”, in early 1959 (RA 1001). It is a Doo-Wop-inspired dance track. The B-side “Insane”, co-written by Gordy and Smokey Robinson, is a Doo-Wop ballad. Another Rayber single (RA I000) was recorded but apparently not released at the time, “Magic” by the Five Stars.
Mable John was the first female solo artist to sign for the Tamla label. She was born in Bastrop, Louisiana, in 1930. The family moved to Detroit in 1941, where she later attended Pershing High School. Her elder brother William “Little Willie” John was a successful singer, whose example encouraged her to pursue a career in music.
Fortunately, Mable John’s first job was at an insurance company in Detroit, where she was supervised by Bertha Gordy, Berry’s mother. After studying for two years at Lewis Business College, she met Mrs Gordy and learned that her son Berry was on the look-out for singers to record the songs that he was writing. The contact with Mrs Gordy no doubt helped to secure an audition and a subsequent offer of help from Berry Gordy, who gave John some guidance and played piano for her at some local bars and clubs. John made her first recording with Gordy in 1959 and signed for the Tamla label.
Mable John: “Stay Out Of The Kitchen”
Album Cover images courtesy of Ace Records UK.
Mable John was a singer in the Etta James mould. Her voice and delivery, whilst not as powerful as Etta James’, were still suited to the Blues, and she was an excellent performer on stage. Berry Gordy duly produced her first single, “Who Wouldn’t Love A Man Like That”/ “You Made A Fool Out Of Me”, co-written by Berry Gordy, Gwen Gordy and Billy Davis. Three further releases followed, including a re-release of the first single with a different track on the B-side, another Gordy, Gordy, Davis song entitled “Say You’ll Never Let Me Go”. Sadly, the singles made little impact, and so she decided to become a member of Ray Charles backing singers The Raelets, before moving to Stax in 1966, which she felt would suit her more. Mable John died in August 2022.
Together with Barrett Strong, rhe Satintones and the Miracles, Mable John and Marv Johnson enabled Berry Gordy to put Motown on the R&B music map.
