by Rick James
Couldn’t wait to tell Bruce Palmer about the Lovin’ Spoonful and the new direction I envisioned for the Mynah Birds. Bruce was already hip to blues-based folk rock and he suggested we get this guitarist who could help us with that sound—his friend Neil Young.
“He’s staying over at Joni Mitchell’s place,” said Bruce. “I’ll take you to meet him.”
Joni was famous for letting musicians crash at her pad directly over the Purple Onion coffeehouse. She and I had a great relationship. It wasn’t sexual but musical as a motherfucker. Joni was a brilliant lyricist and also a student of jazz. You could talk to her about Monk and Mingus. She and I sat up all night listening to Miles’s Sketches of Spain. On another night we were digging Mahler and Mozart. Joni was the first one to play me Mose Allison and I remember teaching her Horace Silver’s “Juicy Lucy.” Joni had killer taste, so if she recommended a musician—the way she and Bruce were recommending Neil Young—that was all the assurance I needed.
Neil was cool. He had a quirky sense of humor and a quick mind. Like most of the other white musicians in Toronto, he was into black music. His singing was a little strange, but his facility on the guitar was crazy. He got all over those strings and showed me some shit I’d never seen before. Neil helped reshape the Mynah Birds into the band I’d been hearing inside my head. Like John Sebastian, Neil bridged folk, blues, and rock in a format that didn’t sound artificial. It sounded real. He was the missing ingredient. Like most bands, the personnel of the Mynah Birds kept changing, but the basic group—me, Nick St. Nicholas, Bruce Palmer, Neil Young, and Goldy McJohn—came together at the right time. And on the right night the right man came to hear us.
That man was John Craig Eaton. His family owned Eaton’s department store. Morley Schelman brought him to the club. Morley and John were two rich kids in love with music. A product of his upbringing, John was a conservative, but after a few weeks of partying with the Mynah Birds, he loosened up. I could see he was toying with the idea of walking on the wild side. Morley saw the same thing. I was surprised when the two of them came to me with an idea.
“I want to manage the Mynah Birds,” said Morley.
“And I want to produce you,” said John.
“If by ‘produce,’ ” I said, “you mean you’ll put up the money, I’m cool with that.”
That’s just what happened. Within a few days John had bought us thousands of dollars’ worth of new instruments and equipment and invited us to rehearse in his mansion. It was like a European palace. I was operating in a different sphere—musically and romantically as well. I’d met this chick named Elke who had me loving on her so hard I found myself doing something the boys back in my Buffalo hood swore they’d never do. I gave her head.
Don’t know why, but my generation of black men had an attitude that it was the woman who did the sucking, not the man. Elke didn’t see it that way. She was gonna get good as she gave. And, believe me, man, she gave plenty good. At first I wasn’t sure. The experience of actually tasting pussy was new and strange. But when I saw her wild reaction and realized the power of the pleasure I was giving her, I gave even more. Elke taught me pleasing a woman is as pleasurable as getting pleased yourself.
Meanwhile, on the business front, our rich backers were eager to please us. They’d been coming to our rehearsals and watching our shows. They were sure we were ready for the big time and wanted to land us a deal. I thought we needed a bit more time. Neil and I had just started writing together, and while our songs were good, I was sure that in a few more weeks they’d be great. Neil had this machine-gun style on the guitar that inspired melodies and lyrics out of me. Sometimes he’d be so into his solos he wouldn’t even realize that his guitar had come unplugged.
When I finally felt we had it together, I told John and Morley to bring the record company execs to hear us in Toronto.
“We’re going one better than that,” said Morley. “We’re taking you to Detroit. Motown wants to hear you.”
“Is Motown right for me?” I asked. “Motown’s all black. Motown’s crossover soul music and we’re in the middle of the white rock mix.”
“Motown’s all about money,” said John. “I’ve talked to Berry Gordy and he’s dying to get into rock. He loves the idea of a white rock band with a black lead. I got us an audition for next week.”
I was game. I was ready to meet the cats who made Marvin Gaye. I was ready to meet Marvin himself. Bring on Smokey and the Miracles. The Mynah Birds would be Motown’s next major miracle.
On the way to Detroit, when crossing over from Windsor, Canada, I got nervous. Morley was reassuring.
“If they ask,” he said, “I got papers here that will see us through. Just remember, though, I’m the only one who knows that you’re AWOL. No one else needs to.”
I agreed. By then I figured I’d beaten the odds and that, as far as the navy was concerned, I was a lost ball in the high weeds.
As far as Motown was concerned, the Mynah Birds were complete oddballs. When we arrived—sometime in 1966—it was culture shock. Detroit still looked like a city out of the fifties—the cats wearing slicked-down process do’s, sharkskin jackets, iridescent pants, shiny gators, stingy-brim Stetsons. Everyone looked like a pimp. We looked like the hippies we were. My hair was out to there, my purple-and-black corduroy jeans had bell bottoms that covered my sandals. I was wore a peace-sign necklace and little oval John Lennon sunglasses. My two favorite words were “far out.”
Morley and John took us to meet Gordy and his boys. Our audition took place in an office building. Berry, a little guy, seemed to be in a hurry. He reminded me of a pug, a compact dog with a sweet face. I knew he’d been a boxer and had also written songs for Jackie Wilson. Given the number of stars he’d created, he had major cred. But he also had this high-pitched childlike voice that made it hard to take him seriously. He spoke in a whiny singsong manner, and when he spoke all his minions kept quiet.
“Let’s see what you got,” he said.
We played “It’s My Time,” a song I’d written. I thought it was the best thing we’d ever done. I heard it as the Four Tops meets the Lovin’ Spoonful, a combination of soul and folk rock. I was worried, though, that Berry wouldn’t get it.
“I got it,” he said. “And I love it. I think it’ll sell. You guys just need production help. Meet my man Mickey Stevenson.”
Mickey Stevenson was Gordy’s head of A & R (artists and repertoire). I saw right away that he, like Berry’s boys, was a Berry Gordy wannabe. They all dressed and talked like the boss. It was a company of conformists. I also knew, though, that Mickey had cowritten “Dancing in the Street” with Marvin Gaye and produced it for Martha and the Vandellas. I knew he’d worked with all the big Motown acts. If he wanted to work with us, fine. Long as there was a contract.
The contract was for six years. That’s all I needed to hear. I didn’t bother looking at the fine print. I was too excited about having my first record deal and an actual cash advance. It wasn’t much, but it was something. We were on Motown.
Mickey took us to the two-story house on West Grand Boulevard that held the original Motown studios, the ones where all the hits had been cut. I was expecting something lavish. What I saw was something sparse. I couldn’t have been less impressed. But I couldn’t have been more impressed when I saw who was sitting in the control room: Marvin Gaye.
When Marvin saw me standing there, he got up and reached out his hand for me to shake.
“Marvin Gaye,” he said.
“I know,” I said. “I’m Ricky James Mathews.”
After we chatted for a while, I asked Marvin how the company decided who got to produce who.
“It’s survival of the fittest, brother,” said Marvin.
“What does that mean?”
“It means it’s a throat-cutting contest up in here.”
“It ain’t one big happy family?”
Marvin just laughed. His wasn’t a harsh laugh, but an easy laugh. He was a gentle gu
y with a sweet smile and a soft disposition that made you feel like you were talking to a prince about to inherit his father’s kingdom. There was something aristocratic about Marvin. In those days he dressed Ivy League—white V-neck tennis sweaters and Brooks Brothers slacks—and liked to talk about Perry Como and Tony Bennett. He sang R & B, but he really wanted to be Frank Sinatra. I didn’t see any reason why he couldn’t be.
As I hung around the studio and began to record under Mickey’s supervision, I saw everyone. The great David Ruffin, lead singer of the Temptations, walked in one day with Tammi Terrell on his arm. Those duets between Marvin and Tammi were just getting started. I always thought Tammi was Marvin’s girl, but Mickey set me straight: Marvin was married to Anna Gordy, Berry’s sister, a woman eighteen years older than Marvin.
“Marvin married his mama,” said Mickey. “Anna leads him around like a dog on a chain.”
I saw Smokey Robinson, another easygoing superstar with a beautiful sunshine personality; the Isley Brothers, who had a smash with “This Old Heart of Mine”; and Norman Whitfield, a dark, brooding light-skinned producer who’d done “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” for Gladys Knight and Marvin. He was an angry cat with a big chip on his shoulder.
I got to meet all the Temptations—the bass singer, Melvin Franklin, was a distant relative of my mom’s—as well as a guy who later became a close friend, Bobby Taylor, one of the singing-est motherfuckers on the planet. I related to Bobby because he grew up in the black hood of DC only to move to Vancouver, Canada, where, with a mixed-race band called the Vancouvers, he made his move to Motown. Not long after we met, Bobby scored on two fronts—he’d have a hit about a black/white romance called “Does Your Mama Know About Me?” written by Tommy Chong (later to become half of Cheech and Chong) and he’d discover the Jackson 5 (only to have Gordy falsely credit Diana Ross for the discovery). Unlike the folk-rock-edged Mynah Birds, though, Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers were straight-up soul.
It was Bobby who pointed out a singer named Chris Clark. “That’s Berry’s white bitch,” said Bobby. “Stay away from her. Matter of fact, you best stay away from all the bitches up in here, ’cause you don’t know who’s fucking who. Fuck the wrong one and you’ll get fucked.”
I took Bobby’s advice. I didn’t hit on any of the women, although all of them—especially Tammi Terrell—looked good to me. The truth is, I was practically too starstruck to do anything but stare at Diana Ross or Martha Reeves, remembering that only a few years ago I was dancing on the streets of Buffalo to their songs. When Bobby introduced me to Clarence Paul, a friend of Mickey Stevenson’s and the guy who worked with Stevie Wonder, I asked if I could meet Stevie. The next day there he was—the sixteen-year-old blind kid who was tearing up the charts with “Uptight (Everything’s Alright).”
“Stevie,” I said, “I won a talent contest in high school singing ‘Fingertips.’ ”
“Let me hear it,” said Stevie.
“Oh, man, I couldn’t, not with you looking at me.”
“I can’t see, remember.”
“Sorry, Stevie, I didn’t mean—”
“I was just fooling with you. Go on and sing.”
“I’m too nervous to sing in front of you.”
“You got to.”
I did, and Stevie nearly fell out laughing. “Love it,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Ricky James Mathews.”
“That’s too long. Ricky James sounds more like it. Gonna remember you, Ricky James. Next time I see you I’ll be singing your hit.”
Mickey Stevenson took us into the little eight-track studio, where he began to analyze our songs. I didn’t like that at first. Who the fuck was he to tell me to change up my compositions? Well, he was a man with some big hits under his belt. So in spite of my resistance, I shut up and listened. He had some decent ideas about song structure and voicings. The cat actually taught me something. We were in there for days and cut a bunch of material with the help of a Canadian white dude, R. Dean Taylor. Neil was especially impressive, wailing on the twelve-string guitar, an axe I hadn’t ever used before. The song everyone liked most was “It’s My Time,” the unanimous choice for our first single. I loved the message of that song—it was my time.
I was at fuckin’ Motown records! I was hanging with Marvin and Stevie! I was chatting up Levi Stubbs and Gladys Knight! It didn’t matter that a lot of the cats, like Harvey Fuqua and even Berry himself, were laughing at my hippie look. With their showbiz “Copacabana” mentality, I knew they were a little behind the times, while I was on the cutting edge. I had me an import version of Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced from England before the album ever hit America. I was all over Sly Stone before any of those Motown execs realized that the music world was in the middle of a revolution. As 1966 moved toward 1967, I had both my feet in the future.
I’m not saying that Motown didn’t help me hone my craft. But they knew I was advanced. Even mean-ass Norman Whitfield, a cat as bullheaded as me, had to give me my props. He asked me questions about where I got my grooves. Not much later, it was Whitfield who watched George Clinton’s Parliament, an old-school doo-wop-style group, morph into Funkadelic. Whitfield flat-out copied their shit and reinvented the Temptations with a Clinton–meets–Sly Stone sound on hits like “Psychedelic Shack,” “Cloud Nine,” “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone,” and “Runaway Child, Running Wild.” Norman had the help of Dennis Edwards, the ferocious new lead singer for the Temptations who replaced David Ruffin, but it was really Funkadelic’s futuristic thinking that inspired those songs.
High on my Motown sessions, convinced that the Mynah Birds were gonna be the Next Big Thing, I flew from Detroit to Buffalo to see Mom. It had been three years. I loved this woman more than life itself. So, after we embraced and I saw the fear in her eyes, I was alarmed.
“What could be wrong, Mom?” I asked. “This Motown thing is gonna make me rich. I’m gonna buy you a big house in the burbs so you’ll never have to run no numbers again.”
“It’s the FBI, son. They still calling. They still looking for you.”
“I got me a new name, a new ID. They ain’t gonna find me.”
“I don’t think you should stay around here, James. I think it’s best that you go back to Toronto.”
“Only if you go with me, Mom. I want you to see how I’ve become a star up there. I want you to meet my friends. It’s a beautiful scene.”
“I’d love to, but I won’t be able to stay for more than a week. I believe you when you say that one day you’ll be rich, but until that day arrives, I still have to work those numbers to buy the groceries.”
“Motown’s given us an advance. My share’s only a few thousand, but you take as much as you like.”
“I’m not taking a dime. You earned it. You enjoy it.”
That was Mom—always putting her children ahead of herself.
We drove from Buffalo to Toronto. Crossing the border, especially with Mom in the car, was a breeze. I loved showing her off to my friends and taking her to the clubs, where, after my Motown score, I was treated like a conquering hero. She was proud and the first to say how she loved basking in my glory. She also liked Elke, the German chick who had turned me out.
My energy was high, not only because the Mynah Birds had a soon-to-be-released record, but also because I had fallen in love with speed. That wasn’t anything I was ready to tell Mom. She thought I was excited from the music I was making and the recognition coming my way. But I was popping pills that had me racing even faster than my normally racy speed.
I was in a hurry to see, do, and feel everything. I especially wanted to see that up-front Motown money. I kept asking Morley Schelman when our checks would be coming through, and he kept saying to ask John Craig, who, in turn, referred me back to Morley. I was getting sick of this shit but didn’t want to start anything while Mom was in town. The minute she went back to Buffalo, though, I called Morley demanding my bread. That’s when he told me to come out to
his new house. When I did, I saw he also had a new motorcycle. As you can imagine, none of this went down well with me. In my imagination, I saw him spending our advance.
“I want the fuckin’ money now,” I said.
“It should be here next week.”
“Next week’s not good enough.”
“I can’t do anything about that.”
“Well, I can.”
“What?”
“I can kick your ass.”
And I did.
I didn’t know it then, but kicking Morley’s ass was tantamount to kicking my own ass.
For a week, I was glad to have put Morley and also John out of our lives. The Mynah Birds didn’t need them. The Mynah Birds had a contract with Motown. Until the call came . . .
Motown wasn’t going to put out our record.
“Why?” I asked their lawyer, who was calling from Detroit.
“Because you’re a fugitive. You’re wanted by the FBI.”
It didn’t take Einstein to figure out what had happened. Morley ratted me out. I figure it had to be him because, outside my family, he was the only one who knew.
I was sunk. Not only was the Motown contract gone, but so was the possibility of signing with any major American label. The FBI had blanketed the music industry, waiting for me to make my next move. They had alerted every record company to contact them the minute I approached. I was cornered. I couldn’t get signed anywhere. All I could do was stay in Toronto. The other Mynah Birds were understandably pissed that I had ruined our deal. I hadn’t been straight with them about my military status. Yet Neil Young and Bruce Palmer, both great guys, stayed loyal. They didn’t kick me out of the band. But how could I stay in when my very presence would keep them from getting a deal?
What the hell was I supposed to do?
“Come home,” said Mom. “You’re going to have to face this sooner or later. Better to give yourself up, do your time, and come out free. Then you’ll be able to pursue your career. If you don’t serve your time, you’ll never be free.”