I thought this was “settled”! Then came a lull and apparently Uncle Sam allowed too many colored immigrants to become “citizens” without qualifying them as to the history of how American Blacks fought to overcome segregation and conduct ourselves correctly while raising our kin to do likewise. The police are not our enemies – this is not the 1960s! So to you newbiees, Cocoanuts from the Caribbean and you from wherever you are who is reading this post, I ask, “If you had a choice of skin colors, which one would YOU choose?”
I remember when this song came out and WWRL AM 1600 in New York City (Woodside, to be exact) played it. It was a cause célèbre because the late Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions had, once again, articulated an argument musically that was going on at the time. I don’t agree with all of the words the lyrics have to say, but the song, unfortunately, still resonates today.
Therefore, it amazes me that it is still a source of American political and social illness here in 2015!
Yet I know why: I am like Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions in that we are Black Americans; descendants of slaves on this continent who came up via the American south lands and whose parents ultimately and after the American Civil War into the beginning of the twentieth century, migrated northward on the east coast. Over time in the mid-to-late twentieth century, “the man” [angry white man establishment who still did not want to embrace us, who were never any threat to the slave master] allowed a whole influx of similar looking people from Caribbean and continental Africa into the continental USA, who have no clue as to the struggle or gains we made and that Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions sang their song unto.
“With just a little bit more education and love for our nation would make for a better world for you and for me.”
Please choose your choice of skin colors in the “comments” below – and I will tell you mine, which I told my parents, waay back in the 1960s when I was a little boy! They were surprised, lol
I loved everything about David Ruffin as lead of The Temptations and thereafter when he recorded solo, especially on “My Whole World Ended (The Moment You Left Me)” and the Van McCoy production, “Walk Away From Love”. I didn’t even connect the vinyl dots to realize that he had an older brother who could sing just as well in his own right until, [ I can’t remember when it was ] one day I acquired and really looked at the label of the 45rpm record, “What becomes Of The Brokenhearted” by Jimmy Ruffin and wondered as I played it, was this guy related to David. Or maybe I had a previous inkling… There was no “Googling” back then to learn instantly the answer, and so I had to rely upon my “ear” for music which heard the similarities of voice that let me know these two singers were related for sure!
I have used Jimmy’s biggest hit to accentuate at least two blogs here at ‘Achilliad‘ since I began to do this in 2009. One was me crying the blues about some chick that deserted me in love back in, I think, 2008 or nine, the other more recently as a part of a collection of “tune wedgies” that I had get off my (mind) chest.
But this post, Jimmy, is for YOU. Posthumously, yes, but I was always by your side due to the anthem of unrequited love that you gave us. With tears wanting to well-up behind my eyes, I dedicate this post to you, Jimmy, who, unbeknownst to you because we never met, held my hand many a night whey I really cried over a lost love. If I were the Program Director of a radio station right now, I would play a whole hour of your music, both the familiar and obscure even if I had to play “What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted” back-to-back-to-back-to-back and then some. You were a non-spotlight seeker whose light of class and groundedness belied the showbiz stereotypes. London was a good place for you to be more appreciated – good move to go there, Sir!
Here is one by Jimmy that is really the first time I heard him! It was on Volume 9 of the famous vinyl “Motown Collections Of 16 Original Hits” albums!
Again, the unrequited love theme on, “Don’t You Miss Me A Little Bit Baby”…
I knew you must have been David’s older brother because of the similarities of stature and movement, like that little hand-to-hand move you did with the mic while singing the oft-sampled lyric, “Always moving and goin’ nowhere.” Knowing you are not in the physical world any longer moves me to seriousness with the knowledge that your spirit is singing with the angels as your body rests in musical peace having let me express my many failed love relationships via your wonderful one-hit wonder.
“What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted”? We just drag along until we have a chance to join the departed.
Whether you are a regular or infrequent visitor to my blog, undoubtedly you have heard me refer to Frankie Crocker as my inspiration for wanting to become a high-paid celebrity professional radio personality. I haven’t looked, but I bet in each of “My Vinyls” I mention him. The “high-paid” part never happened, but he hipped me to so much music via his programming and radio show, while teaching me, in a vicarious way, how not to take any shit from people while doing my shows.
I remember him once giving me the advice, to take full control of your show whenever you are on, no-matter what or who (but he put it another way as described in my book) tries to interfere. Frankie was very quotable and had a lot of “sayings” – many direct and controversial.
In my first radio memoir book, “He’s In A Meeting…Adventures In Getting Past Gatekeepers (My Pursuit of Modest Fame In The Radio Game And Other Assorted Lefe Letters/Short Stories)” – which you can see the front cover of below in the right sidebar – I write about Mr. Crocker and how he influenced me and so many of us during his times. I describe some of the ways I got “past” his gatekeepers; secretaries like Denise Colon and Champaine of WBLS FM, New York, and some other fun “things” I did to get his attention along the way, in the book.
Pickhitt: I’d be remiss if I didn’t credit my loving and full-of-good-ideas beloved, Inna, who thought of me doing this book promotional post! Cheers, Babychka!
Read more about the legendary ‘Chief Rocker’ in “He’s In A Meeting, Adventures In Getting Past Gatekeepers” [CreateSpace/Amazon KDP].
~
“If Frankie Crocker’s not on your radio, your radio’s not really ON…” 😀 ~~ Jimi
I don’t want to wait until one of the members of this group dies or something similar to do this one.
I have avoided most R&B music ever since having a traumatic termination experience at the last R&B radio outlet I diligently performed on, and tirelessly worked for getting exceptional “ratings”, when I was literally “fired” as the individual who hired me, (the GM) used a load gun in-hand while he dismissed me. Seemy book, “He’s In A Meeting…” for how it played-out thereafter. However, today I shot a promotional video, where I had creative control, and in one of “those” moments, it came to me that this particular O’Jays song was the perfect background theme song. “As luck would have it”, I have now pulled my whole O’Jays catalog from me library to me desk, Mon. Let us see what we have here….
Hailing from Canton, Ohio, I believe and named after one of my favorite and much-missed radio disc jockey inspirations, the late Eddie O’Jay, these cats have been part of the fabric of my life since their first big album dropped in 1972 as I was a freshman in college. I first listened to Eddie O’Jay on Newark, New Jersey’s WNJR AM where he scatted such cool gibberish as “So cool, docaroo; eh-tu, me and you, sabee-doo!” LOL as part of his daily sign-off the air. For a long time I didn’t connect the group with the radio personality – “Duh??” Just like I didn’t know they were originally a quartet that included Bobby Isles – my parents tried to keep my from what they described as the “gut-bucket music” R&B table; what can I say except, that I broke free in college, rapido-style, in order to catch-up.
Last I paid serious attention, The O’Jays are/were Eddie Lavert, William Powell and Walter Williams. They came to hit status due to the writing prowess of Leon Huff and Kenny Gamble in the early 1970s and to me, their signature is the almost rough and churchy- energetic vamping of lead singer, Mr. Lavert. He is the male standard for “bringing a song home”! He knows how to put the “beg” on the woman in-song, is smooth and soft; or “nice and rough” as Tina Turner once described their “Rolling On The River”. Moreover, do not get it twisted, all three of the O’Jays can carry the lead.
My oldest O’Jays vinyl is “Backstabbers” which featured the classics ‘Love Train”, “Sunshine”, “Time To Get Down”, and of course the title track that became a euphemism for me and my college mates back then when it became known that another man was after “your’ girl – he then dubbed was a “Backstabber (what they do!)”.
Thanks to the promotion people I remember at CBS Records (the “black rock building” like Jackie Thomas, Elaine Valentine and T.C. Tompkins, I own about seventeen O’Jays vinyls. Of course, growing up in music within the sound of Frankie Crocker’s “total Black Experience In Sound, ” WBLS FM radio station did not hurt my O’Jay education nor catalog. I remember him “running” the hit “For The Love Of Money” over and over again! This was an era prior to “remixed versions” that are just part of the music machine fabric nowadays. My second oldest is “The O”Jays in Philadelphia” which includes “‘One Night Affair”, which was my first 45rpm by them from the local record shop on Neptune Records.
Then there is the classic (another one!) “Ship Ahoy”, where in addition to “Money”, I always dug “Put Your Hands Together”, “People Keep Telling Me” and “Now That We Found Love” which the reggae group Third World made a smash out of too! Next is “The O’Jays Live In London” which, when released, was kind of a first. A reverse Beatles moment when an American “soul” group went across the “pond” and “wowed” the Brits! (I couldn’t find any video for that appearance, sadly)
Next are my vinyls: “Family Reunion”, featuring the love classic “You and Me” as well as the sometimes over-played, IMHO, title track, the cool “Living For The Weekend”, McFadden and Whitehead-written “She’s Only A Woman”, and a little ditty called “I Love Music” which became a disco classic upon remixes by the likes of yours truly and other selectors of the day. Positioning that track last on that album was genius! Next I have the “Survival” album featuring “Give The People What They Want” and my personal fave, “How Time Flies”; next 1976’s “Message In The Music” featuring the ultimate dance floor-filler classic of it’s time, “Darlin’ Darlin’ Baby (Sweet, Tender, Love)” – I still have the 12″ versions separate from the rest, LOL. You just heard it here (and I dedicate it to my Ukrainian, Nina, by-the-way).
Following that platinum success the guys were ‘Travelin’ At The Speed Of Thought” (an interlude in their discography) until they discovered they were “So Full Of Love” which included their first real “crossover” sure shot into the mainstream of Pop music, “She Used Ta Be My Girl”. I can name THAT tune in the first several guitar riff notes and it always reminds me of my first commercial radio riff on WFLB AM in 1978. “Identify Yourself” took the stage on Philadelphia International/Mighty Three Music in 1979 where “Forever Mine’ was the star song. In 1982 my collection features the non-descriptive “My Favorite Person” album, which was only saved by the title song and the Womack connection on the first song, “I Just Want To Satisfy You” which played big in New York City radio because of Crocker and Sonny Taylor. Play it again, “Sam”! A rare dud for the group was the vinyl, “When Will I See You Again”, and I knew that they should take a powder for a while after it. Sure enough, the came back in 1984 and 1984 with “Love and More” and did a little bit better on “Love Fever”, but still not up to their previous standards until the album that inspired this post, 1987’s “Let Me Touch You”. This effort showcases all the styles, spectrums and signatures of The O’Jays as exemplified by a Latin-funky “True Love Never Dies” on one song and then a heartfelt “Still Missing” on the next.
So which one is my favorite album or cut? Well, there are way too many to mention! I love “Darlin’ Baby” the same way I dig “Lovin’ You” or “When The World Is At Peace”. I am sure , and at least HOPE that they are still making music and albums/CDs. I am not in the “loop” anymore with their labels like it was easy “back in the day” to keep up, and I want to cry about it.
Not the “Old Jays” as I recently heard some young homies disrespectfully refer to them, but still the O’JOINTS! Ya know, “True love” really “never dies”. We Love you Eddie Lavert!
So what are your favorite O’Jays songs or concert moments? Or had you ever even heard of them until you read this?
I don’t know about where you live if you live in a city in the U.S.A., but here in Hootyville I didn’t hear any radio stations doing a tribute to Teddy Pendergrass when word came that he passed away on January 13th. That is damn shame, but what you get when you have cold, inflexible corporations running the radio of the day.
The first time I heard Teddy Pendergrass was back when the late, great radio programmer Frankie Crocker played a record by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes called “I Miss You” on the first Black FM music station in New York City, WLIB-FM in 1972. They would play the whole eight minute version where the AM stations would only play “part 1” and the Teddy’ Bear’s voice was the most powerful on this then new group; it grabbed you! My favorite on that first album on Philadelphia International Records however, was (and still is) “Yesterday I Had The Blues”. That was the first time that Teddy really brought it emotionally, and shined distinctively on a song with his “cryin'” and pleading style. The other hit from the album was “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” (whose intrumental track sounds very similar to The Eagle’s “Take It To The Limit, by the way), and again Teddy carried the tune and painted the lyrical picture.
Around 1973 WLIB FM became WBLS FM, and Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes second album, “Black & Blue” hit the streets preceeded by the single “The Love I Lost, part 1”. Back then many “soul” records had a “part one” and the flip side of the 45rpm record would be “part 2” – a trend started by James Brown and King Records I think. What was hip about that was that it created anticipation for the album (lp or long-playing 331/3) to come out so that you could hear the whole song without the interruption of having to physically turn the record over. I remember this especially benefiting this group on this particular song and once again Teddy Pendergrass was given more of a lead role and he ran with it. It also was the beginning of the “Disco” era, so when I as a “baby DJ” gleaned this, I would play it to fill the dance floor because of its really moving beat. The cover features the group clad in caberet-style tuxedo, and Teddy still tugging at your heart strings as he breaks it down. Another favorite on that album is the slow jam, “Concentrate On Me”, where in their classic Gamble & Huff style, the formula was for Teddy to tell the story in-between magnificent chorouses by the rest of the group. I remember vintage radio personalities of the day like Crocker saying that Teddy was “taking you to church on that one…” Groups like these helped to form my notions about romance and unrequited love, and I still fall back on them during times of heartbreak (like in recent months).
1975 saw the group produce two great albums, “To Be True” and “Wake Up Everybody”. It also marked the first signs of a restless Teddy Bear; as I recall, he threatened to leave unless he received top billing, and so in a compromise of sorts they became Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes featuring Teddy Pendergrass. Teddy knew he made the sound of the group sell.
“To be True” spawned at least three hits: “Where Are All My Friends”,” To Be True”, and the biggest, most dancable one, “Bad Luck”. I also loved “Nobody Could Ever Take Your Place” with its long MFSB-style dancable instrumental- into-the-fade. The group also introduced a female to the sound for the first time in Sharon Paige who many of my classmates loved on the jazzy “Hope That We Can Be Together Soon”. Word was behind the scenes that she was included to vex Teddy a bit within his power-play. Lightning struck twice when later that year the second album dropped and Teddy led the way on a spirited cover of the Thelma Houston disco classic “Don’t Leave me This Way”. My personal fave on “Wake Up” is his work on “Tell The World How I Feel About’Cha Baby”, and the title track scored by touching a nerve within us all in a timeless way.
The next vinyl in my Teddy library, is simply entitled “Teddy Pendergrass” or “the white scarf album” as my mentor, the late Sonny Taylor called it. As the title suggests, he was now a solo act after a final dispute with Harold Melvin, who replaced him with someone I remember only as “Ebo” as introduced at Madison Square Garden’s old “Felt Forum” (now the Paramount). He was still written by Gamble and Huff, and the material and tempos were as good as every for “Pender-bender” which was another of the nicknames we gave him. It featured the hit “You Can’t Hide From Yourself”, the introspective “The Whole Town’s Laughing At Me” and a serious smash in “I Don’t Love You Anymore” among others. My notes scribbled on the back of the jacket give this album five stars back in March of 1977. Personal fave here: “The More I Get, The More I Want” ( he’d sing “ah-yeah” between verses). As I listen to the music Teddy left behind, it becomes apparent that he made the right moves with his career, and his timing was excellent for a good while.
There are two vinyls that I was never able to add to my collection, “T.P” and “Life Is A Song Worth Singing”. They were released sometime between 1977 and 1980 and included two of my faaavorite numbers, “Love TKO” and “Close The Door”. “TKO” was so hot that even with the record company connections of a young DJ, I could not secure anything but a couple of 45rpms of it until Teddy’s “Greatest Hits” came out in 1984.
Two years later, in 1979 (a great year for Disco and Soul music) his next solo album, “Teddy” or the red album was clearly a sexier effort. “Come Go With Me” and the powerful “Turn Off The Lights” (“I’ve something in my MIND, something I’ve been wanting to do it all the TIME! Yeah…Yes!..”) led it off and were massive romantic hits which still sound sensual today. Later that same year “Teddy Live! Coast To Coast” , a double vinyl album hit just in time for Christmas on December 12th. If it had come out today, it definitly would have included a video, but in those days a full length poster of Pendergrass did just fine. During those performances, one In Philadelphia and the others in Los Angeles, he included a medly of his hits with The Blue Notes and by now the women in the audience were throwing articles of their underwear at him in adoration.
Little did he or we know that tradegy would strike and almost silence Teddy three years later when he had a Roy Campanella-style auto accident one night that left him paralysed from the waste down. There were several scandalous rumors surrounding that event, which I’ll not go into here.
Teddy Pendergrass rose like the Pheonix though; the next vinyl in my collection, “This One’s For You” (1982) was a homage to his fans after he pulled through the medical procedures that followed his accident. Maybe the first track on there says it best about how he felt at the time, ” I Can’t Win For Losing”.
By 1984 Teddy had signed with Elektra/Asylum Records and subsquently sang the next three and final of my vinyls for that record company. The three now only photographed him from the chest-up; no more cowboy hats and suggestive gyration photos. “Love Language” featured the sexy, “You’re My Choice Tonight” which I played on New York City radio along with more introspective selections such as “In My Time”. 1985’s “Workin’ It Back” had eight five-star songs on it, including “Let Me Be Closer”, co-written by the legendary Linda Creed, and “Love Emergency”, co written by Womack & Womack, who also penned the fabulous “Love TKO”. For the first time, Teddy’s star began to fade around this point, in my opinion.
The last and most recent vinyl in my Teddy Bear den is 1988’s spirited “Joy” , which was produced by Teddy for Teddy Bear Productions, Inc. (see, he listened to us!) The first two songs are the stalwarts here as well: the title track and one of the best songs he ever sang after the crash, “2 A.M” which decribes the end of a party and alludes to taking her home and to a more intimate level. The accident humbled Pendergrass as it probably would any of us, and his subsequent work showed it even though his voice never lost all of it’s sex appeal nor he the ability to orally interpret lyrics to evoke real feelings.
I just heard the end notes of Teddy fading off from a tribute to Teddy Pendergrass on the radio tonight, two nights later – on the PBS station! Bigg Upps to them and their warm teddy-bear selves.
I don’t want to wait until one of the members of this group dies or something similar to do this one. 
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