Mojo - The Music Magazine

They had Motown’s breakthrough hit, the all-frugging Do You Love Me. Phil Alexander hears their tale first-hand.

THEIRS WAS A SOUND that appeared to precede the polished pop carefully cultivated on the Hitsville assembly line. Rougher and tougher, The Contours were a group whose roots lay firmly planted in deep R&B territory and whose vocals retained a streetwise edge that separated them from their more sophisticated-sounding labelmates (and friends) like The Temptations and The Miracles, all of whom would enjoy greater commercial success. And yet, while the five-piece of Billy Gordon, Billy Hoggs, Hubert Johnson, Joe Billingslea and Leroy Fair, struggled to make an impact with their first single, 1961’s Whole Lotta Woman, it proved to be a case of third-time-lucky for one of Motown’s most atypical acts.

Released in June 1962, the band’s third 45, the Berry Gordy-penned Do You Love Me, catapulted the quintet into the upper reaches of the US pop Top 40. Driven by Billy Gordon’s distinctive holler, the track itself was a frenzied and infectious slice of dancefloor-orientated rock’n’soul, selling over a million copies upon its release and, along with The Miracles’ Shop Around, providing Motown with one of its most significant early hits. Meanwhile, Fair’s spot had been filled by Martha Reeves’ brother Billy, who was replaced in his turn by Sylvester Potts.

The Contours themselves headlined the first ever Motor Town Revue tour but following up the success of Do You Love Me proved a near impossible task. Three lesser hits – Shake Sherry, Can You Do It and Can You Jerk Like Me – did follow but the band themselves began to fragment in 1964, initially leaving Billy Gordon to helm a new incarnation of the group and ultimately leaving Potts to pilot the band through later material like the uproarious First I Look At The Purse in 1965, prior to the group’s final bow three years later.

Despite their turbulent history, however, The Contours have endured largely thanks to Do You Love Me, described by Iggy Pop in this month’s MOJO magazine as “a great record you never get tired of hearing”.

In later years, both Sylvester Potts and Joe Billingslea have resurrected incarnations of the band. It is the latter who calls MOJO to help celebrate Motown’s golden anniversary, something which he does candidly and with great relish. In what is a warm 30 minute conversation he lays bare the story of the band’s rise and fall…

What inspired you guys back in the beginning?

Well, in 1959 myself and Billy Gordon were in another group called The Majestics. The group disbanded so Billy and I put an ad in the paper for two more guys and Billy Hoggs answered the ad and he had another guy. So we met up at Billy Hoggs’ house and we started rehearsing. It sounded pretty good so we said, OK, this is the group.

The next day, we came into rehearsal and the other guy, Billy Rollins, decided he didn’t want to sing but he knew another guy so we said OK and got this other guy, whose name was Leroy Fair. He started singing and he blended in real good so we called ourselves The Blenders. Then we started rehearsing and felt we needed to add another guy, a bass singer. So Billy Gordon, our lead singer, he was working at a car wash and he met Hubert Johnson there. He was talking to Hubert and he said, “Well, I sing too, I sing bass.” so he brought Hubert to rehearsals and Hubert fit in perfect. So we start singing at different clubs around the city, gaining some experience.

We thought we were pretty good so we went down to a studio and sung a couple of songs. The guy there didn’t like the way the group sounded but he liked one particular song and said he’d like to have it. We said, “No, you can’t have this song. Why can’t you take the group?” And he said: “Well, I don’t think you guys are that good but I like the song.”

As we were leaving, on the way out of the studio, there was a sign on the door that said Glick & Contour Recording Company. So I said, “Wow, I like that name, Contour.” So when we got out on the street, I said: “Guys, let’s change our name.” They said OK. We put five pieces of paper in a hat to pick a name. Quite naturally we had five different names, but everyone said: “Contour? What’s a contour? What does that mean?” I did not know what it meant. I said: “That means we’re going straight to the company! Contour means a straight line.” And they said: “Yeah, that’s a good idea.” So that’s how we became The Contours.

Who did you model your vocal sound on?

At the time our favourite group was called The Midnighters. Hank Ballard And The Midnighters. We were inspired by them and thought we’d try to get their type of sound.

That was a real rough type of R&B sound, in a proper sense. Far less smooth than the music that evolved out of the Detroit scene, specifically out of Motown. So what was the Detroit scene like pre-Motown?

Well, you always had people that could sing in Detroit. Every group like The Contours, The Temptations, The Miracles, The Four Tops – everybody from that era – we all knew each other. We’d play local shows, go to house parties. Back in those days everybody was singing and all the girls liked singers – [they] liked first tenors and bass singers! So everyone wanted to be first tenors and bass singers. They got the cream of the crop. The other guys had no such luck. But if you weren’t in a group, you didn’t have a girlfriend [laughs]. In the pre-Motown days everything was fun. All the major groups knew everybody. Like The Miracles were called The Matadors before they were called The Miracles; The Temptations were Otis Williams And The Distants. When they came to Motown, they were The Distants. Not The Temptations.

So you famously auditioned for Berry Gordy and got turned down. So what happened?

I guess we felt we were ready. We had sung at a couple of local bars, trying to get experience and understand what the crowds were like. So we knew we were ready and went down to Motown and knocked on the door. We were told to come in and there was Berry Gordy sitting on the couch. The secretary told him who we were and that we interested in auditioning, so he said, Fine.

We sang three songs for Berry and he said: “It sounds all right, guys. But come back in six months, you’re not quite ready.” I said, Oh, man. We were all dejected. But the secretary said: “You guys sound real good. Don’t stop; don’t wait six months. Come back before then.”

We left the studio and said, We don’t need Hitsville – which Motown was called at the time – we’ll go somewhere else. So Hubert Johnson, our bass singer, said, We’ll go see my cousin. Who’s your cousin? He said: My cousin’s Jackie Wilson. We all started laughing. Jackie Wilson ain’t your cousin, man! Where’d you get this from? Why didn’t you ever say nothin’? He said: I didn’t have no reason to say he was my cousin.

So we went to the corner phone booth to call him and he said, Come over. We hopped in the car and went to Harlem Park, where Jackie lived. We went to the front door and Hubert said, Nah, let’s go to the back door. I said: Why we gotta go to the back door, man? I ain’t goin’ to no back door. He said: If you want to see him, you gotta come through the back door. So we went around to the back door behind Hubert, who opened the door and went in. Jackie Wilson’s mother was there and greeted Hubert, and we were like: Wow, he really is Jackie Wilson’s cousin!

Then Jackie Wilson came downstairs – and it was the real Jackie Wilson! – so we all shook his hand. Him and Hubert went upstairs and they talked. When they came back down we said: What did he say, man? He said: He’ll listen to us but we’ll have to wait. So we were waitin’ down there about half an hour and I said, I’m not goin’ to wait any longer. This guy doesn’t want to hear us, man. Let’s get out of here. So at that particular time he came downstairs and said, OK, guys, come on up.

We told him that we had gone down to Motown and talked to Berry and he said come back in six months. So Jackie said, Let me hear the song. We sung him a song and he said, You guys are pretty good, and told us to wait a minute. So he got on the phone and we were in the same room, so we heard it, and he said: Hey Berry, blah blah blah, I got these guys over here and they sound great. The Contours. They were over there a few months ago. And Berry said, “OK, send them right back down.”

So we ran down the street, got back in the car, ran through a couple of red lights and got back down to the studio. We went in and Berry said, OK, sing the song. So we sang the same three songs that we had sung earlier and he told us to come back tomorrow and sign a contract.

But we had to ask Hubert why he didn’t tell us that Jackie Wilson was his cousin. We found out that Jackie and Berry were real good friends because Berry Gordy wrote almost all of Jackie’s first hit records. Then [we] also [found out that] Berry and Jackie were golden gloves champions together – we didn’t know all that stuff. They were already friends. So Hubert being Jackie’s cousin, that’s what got us into Motown.

I learned right then that it wasn’t what you know, it’s who you know.

------------------------------------------

For Part Two of our Contours interview, including the story of their ground-breaking Do You Love Me, click here…