Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,694
By This is the grave of Pervis Jackson.
Born in 1938 in New Orleans, Pervis Jackson grew up in Detroit. His family had followed the Great Migration north to better jobs and less overt racism. They at least found the first in Detroit, if not the second. In 1954, Jackson was a student at Ferndale High School. He and his friends decided to form a group. This was the Spinners. One of the great doo-wop bands of that fecund R&B era, they came out of a housing project where they all lived. Jackson was the bass voice. Now, bass voices are rarely the most popular of a vocal band, whether in the R&B world or the country world where vocal groups such as the Statler Brothers and Oak Ridge Boys formed nearly at the same time and had many of the same influences. But the bass voice is hugely important here, just like the bass is in a band. You need to have that big bottom, in the case of a vocal group for contrast more than for rhythm. The Spinners’ lead was Bobby Smith and so naturally, he was the biggest star. But they all–Billy Edwards, Henry Fambrough, George Dixon, and Jackson–were super important to the group’s success.
Now, there was some turnover in the early years (Dixon didn’t join until 1961) and they were really just a local act for awhile. But in 1961, Harvey Fuqua signed the band to his Tri-Phi Records and they released “That’s What Girls Are Made For.” It did surprisingly well, hitting #27 on at least one chart. And honestly, the 60s was kind of up and down for this band, making them decidedly secondary to bands such as the Temptations. Berry Gordy bought Fuqua out and brought all those bands under his Motown Records. They did alright and by 1964 were playing the Apollo in New York. But they really couldn’t break through. “I’ll Always Love You” hit #35 in 1965 and “Truly Yours” hit #16 in 1966, but that was about it. In fact, Gordy would make the guys do work for more successful bands or even grunt work for the label.
It wasn’t until 1970 that the Spinners really started seeing success. And I have to say, 15 years is a long time from the beginning of a group to having anything like real success. Two people were key here. The first, more passively, was Stevie Wonder. The Spinners began recording some of his songs and having minor hits with them, first with “It’s a Shame” and then with “We’ll Have It Made.” They released an album called 2nd Time Around, which is maybe not a great album, but is a fine enough one. The more active supporter that helped them was Aretha Franklin, who advised them to leave Motown and come sign with Atlantic, where she recorded. That worked wonders. Gordy never really did believe in them.
The early 70s were gold for Jackson and the Spinners. They finally started going high on the charts. They recorded their first top 10 single with “I’ll Be Around” hitting #3 in 1972. In 1973, they scored with “Could It Be I’m Falling in Love” and “One of a Kind (Love Affair)”, part of the great era of adding parenthetical additions to song titles. Through the mid-70s, the band was just consistently solid. Not surprisingly perhaps, success led to the destruction of the band in 1977. By this point, they had added a singer named Philippe Wynne and he wanted to change the name of the band to Phillipe Wynne and the Spinners. Well, that insulted the members of the band who had been there forever. They told him to jump in Lake Michigan. So he left (hiring Alan Thicke as his manager!) and the rest of the band continued, but without the level of success they had over the past few years. The Spinners still remain around today on the nostalgia circuit. I am not sure if any original members are still with it, but I guess it doesn’t matter.
In any case, Jackson was solid as a rock for the guys through this whole era. He never sang lead, but he sang and was a core member of the group. The closest he came to singing lead was a bit on their 1975 hit “Games People Play,” but even here it was Bobby Smith primarily singing lead. He stuck with them the rest of his life. Jackson died in 2008, at the age of 70, from cancer. He sang with his friends up until the month before his death. At this point, it was he, Smith, and Henry Fambrough, plus new guys.
Pervis Jackson is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Detroit, Michigan.
In 2023, the Spinners were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. If you would like this series to visit other inductees, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. It turns out that Link Wray is in Copenhagen and I could use a trip to Denmark and I think you want to make that happen. Everyone else from 2023 is either alive, not American, or cremated. From this year’s class, the Motown songwriter Norman Whitfield is in Hollywood and Big Mama Thornton is in Inglewood, California. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.