Bobby Taylor, Motown Singer Who Discovered Jackson 5, Dead at 83

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http://www.rollingstone.com/music/n...r-who-discovered-jackson-5-dead-at-83-w493643



Vancouvers singer found Jackson 5 after they opened for his band, brought group to Motown


Bobby Taylor (middle), the veteran singer and producer who brought the Jackson 5 to Motown in the late Sixties, died Saturday at the age of 83. GAB Archive Redferns
By Steve Knopper


Bobby Taylor, the veteran singer and producer who brought the Jackson 5 to Motown in the late Sixties, died Saturday morning at a hospital in Hong Kong, where he'd been living for the last several years. He was 83 and had been undergoing treatment for leukemia and tumors in his spine. "Bobby was a producer, creator and mentor to all of the greats in the early Motown days," says Suzy Michelson, a longtime family friend and fellow producer who confirmed Taylor's death to Rolling Stone.


"Bobby had a range that exceeded even Patti LaBelle," recalls Tommy Chong, who played guitar in Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers, a Motown band famous for 1968's Number Five R&B hit "Does Your Mama Know About Me."


"He used to do 'Danny Boy' and make everybody cry in the audience. He would hit notes that were unbelievably high and he could sound like anybody he wanted to sound like—Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Smokey [Robinson]. I've been with a lot of singers, but nothing like Bobby."
Although Motown and the Jacksons gave credit for years to superstar singer Diana Ross for discovering the family band that made "I Want You Back" and "ABC," it was Taylor who spotted them at Chicago's Regal Theatre in 1968. The still-unknown Jackson 5 had been opening for Taylor's Vancouvers.


"I saw this little kid spinning and stuff and said, 'Dang, send him upstairs. When he finishes, I want to talk to this kid,'" Taylor said in a 2011 interview.


Taylor, who acted as a sort of Motown scout by the late Sixties, wound up producing the Jackson 5's earliest recordings for the label, including a version of the Smokey Robinson-penned "Who's Lovin' You," with the Funk Brothers house band in Detroit. Taylor once said he had to pull a gun on the Jacksons' controlling father, Joe, to prevent interference.


"I'd say [to Michael], 'You want to check the key out?' He'd say, 'No, that's OK, what key is it in now?' I'd tell him and he'd say, 'Yeeeeah!'" Taylor told Rolling Stone recently in an unpublished phone interview from Hong Kong, just before he became ill. "And he'd go in and do it. Everything I gave him to sing, he could sing it right back."


But Gordy, who felt the Jackson 5's early Motown songs were "too old-fashioned," replaced Taylor with The Corporation, a production group of Deke Richards, Fonce Mizell, Freddie Perren and Gordy himself, for the band's biggest hits. "I'm not an ass-kisser. I'll tell you what I think. I was running things my way and didn't want any interference," Taylor said in an interview for the 1995 Jackson 5 box Soulsation! "I was turning the Jackson 5 into a classic soul act... BG didn't like that. He had ideas of his own. He wanted Michael doing more bubblegum material. He sent me packing."


Born in Washington, D.C., to parents of Puerto Rican and Native American heritage, Taylor lived in the same neighborhood as the late singer Marvin Gaye when they were both kids. He told friends his mother sang with Marian Anderson, the great opera singer, and her best friend had been Billie Holiday, so Taylor met Miles Davis, Nat King Cole and other stars when he was growing up. He served as a cook in the military for the Korean War, as he told the South China Morning Post.


He'd been in several bands, including Little Daddie and the Bachelors and one he provocatively called "Four Niggers & A Chink"— its guitarist was Tommy Chong, who would go on to partner with fellow stoner-comic "Cheech" Marin.


Taylor was an outspoken character given to bright-purple suits. He once called Chong from the road and asked him to transfer his pet lion from his apartment to a wild-life shelter. "When Bobby Taylor walked into Motown, the switchboard would alert everybody and they would lock their [office] doors," Chong says. "There was no filter on Bobby's mouth. He would tell Berry Gordy: 'Nappy-headed little n-----, what's happening?' He would talk to Berry like he would talk to me."


Taylor had a habit of "Donald Trumpifying everything," Chong says, so he exaggerated biographical details like the time Jimi Hendrix played with the Vancouvers but was fired for over-soloing. The truth is Hendrix had heard about the band, showed up for a gig in the U.K. and played bass for a lengthy set while Taylor sang and Chong played guitar.


"[Taylor's] greatest talent was teaching people how to sing: 'Come on, mother****er, you can hit that note. Come on! Just hit it!'" Chong recalls, in a phone interview from Tacoma, Washington, a tour stop with Cheech and Chong. "That's the way he was."


Eventually Motown eased Taylor into a solo career, and he scored minor hits such as "I Am Your Man" and "Malinda" before encountering the Jackson 5. After the group moved on from Taylor, he put out "Taylor Made Soul" on Motown in 1969, but it sold little and the company didn't release the follow-up. He overcame throat cancer in the Seventies, then worked with various musicians, including Ian Levine on "Cloudy Day."


He moved to Beijing for a job roughly 15 years ago, then relocated to Hong Kong, where he sang at friends' nightclubs. His last known recording was the unreleased "Humanity," a tribute to the late rock guitarist Dick Wagner.


As Taylor told the South China Morning Post: "I have 12 kids, met three presidents and, in general, I wouldn't change a thing." Adds Chong: "St. Peter's going, 'Bobby Taylor's in heaven now, notify everybody!'"
 
This breaks my heart. Just recently listened their song "Do Your momma know about me". May he rest in peace
 
Oh wow! this is sad news.. thank you Bobby for everything you've done!
 
I would imagine that Bobby is the kind of person I'd like to sit with all day long and just listen to his stories of his life. Fascinating. I liked this obituary-when he said he was turning the Jackson 5 into a classic soul act and Gordy had other ideas. It corroborates the story Mrs. Jackson told that she didn't like their "new stuff" (the Corporation songs) as much as the old soul standards they had been singing up to that point.

Also interesting that Bobby had a pet lion in his apartment. So many things Michael saw when he was a child, I assume, that just most likely became normal to him.
 
R.I.P Bobby Taylor.
I really appreciate all he did for Michael and the Jacksons. He's one of few people I enjoy listening to when he was interview on the Life Of Icon documentary
 
All I knew about Mr. Taylor was from his interview clips, in the "Life of An Icon" documentary. I'm praying for his family, and I hope he's in Heaven with Jesus now.
 
Very sad news. Was only thinking about that discovery story from The Legend Continues the other day.
 
Tommy Chong Remembers Former Bandmate Bobby Taylor

by Tommy Chong July 24, 2017 Celeb Stoner
dr_BobbyTaylorVancouvers_w625_h424.jpg

Official Motown photo of the Vancouvers, circa 1968: Bobby Taylor (center), Tommy Chong (left) and Wes Henderson (right).

Before he became a famous comedian, Tommy Chong played guitar in bands in Western Cannada, where he grew up. He moved to Vancouver and eventually teamed up with singer Bobby Taylor to form the Vancouvers. Chong wrote the lyrics for their 1968 hit song, "Does Your Mama Know About Me," which rose to No. 29 on the pop charts.

Taylor passed away from cancer on July 22. He was 83 and living in Hong Kong. Chong reminisces about his old bandmate, as told to Steve Bloom:

I met Bobby at Big Al's in San Francisco. I was in the States with Little Daddy & the Bachelors. We heard Bobby sing threre. He was a great singer and really friendly. We stayed around and played at the club for a while. Those were tough gigs, five sets a night. Bobby would sit in on drums with us. We eventually went back to Vancouver, to my club, the Elegant Parlor.

When our drunmer Floyd Sneed got an offer to join Three Dog Night, I called Bobby and he came up to Vancouver and took the gig. But he just played drums one night.

Everybody wanted to hear Bobby sing. He was the best singer I ever heard.

Diana Ross and the Supremes did a show at The Cave. She came over to the Parlor, which was an after-hours club. That's when she discovered Bobby Taylor. She called [Motown head and her boyfriend at the time] Berry Gordy. He flew in the next day and signed Bobby. Suddenly, we were on Motown.
BobbyTaylorVancouvers_single.jpg

However, Berry had a short attention span. We had the hit with "Does Your Mama Know About Me" and then Bobby became a solo artist. Berry would take a lead singer and make him a solo.

The problem with Bobby was he could sing, but wasn't a songwriter like Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson.

You're only as good as your next hit record. After the Vancouvers broke up, Bobby replaced David Ruffin in the Temptations.

Years passed before we played together again. Cheech [Marin] and I had split up. I had a trio gig at Cine Grill in L.A. around 1986. Bobby showed up and took over the gig. We put the Vancouvers back together for a minute. We played a few gigs at Oil Can Harry's in Vancouver. A lot of musicians would sit in with us. But it wasn't my thing anymore, playing backup guitar in a band. It just didn't feel right for me.

Bobby got a gig with a Motown Revue in China. He ended up living there. The last time I sang with him was in 1993. He'd phone once in a while. My daughter Precious interviewed him a few months ago for a documentary she's working on about my life. That's the last time I spoke to him.

He sounded great, he never changed. He never missed a gig. But he was a journeyman, like so many great jazz musicians who die in obscurity.

You need talent, brains and good timing to make it. It has to be your time.

Bobby taught me how to sing. I was intimidated because I'm not a natural singer. He inspired me to write "Does Your Mama Know About Me" because of all the relationships he had with a lot of girlfriends.

He thought nothing of walking up to Berry Gordy or Muhammad Ali and talking to them like he was their equal.

He also gave me confidence to be a comedian, because you can get out of everything with comedy. Thanks, Bobby."
 
Wow, great story and how interesting is that??!! So no, of course, we all know that Diana did not discover the the Jackson 5 and that distinction belongs to Bobby Taylor (and some to Gladys Knight, who also talked about the kids to Motown), but who knew that Diana discovered Bobby????

I find that fascinating. I also think it's great that it wasn't so cutthroat back then, that they were all looking out for new talent to bring in to the family-I think that's why there's such a family feeling with old Motown, even with Berry being as cutthroat as he was at the same time.
 
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