Welcome to a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. Hey, good to have you here, no matter if you just happen to stumble on the show for the first time or if you’re a regular listener. A breath of fresh air is all about hearing from your favourite music artists from the 60s, 70s and 80s and I hope you’re enjoying the yarns.
Don’t forget if there’s someone special you’d like to hear from, just send me a message through the website abreathoffreshair.com.au. Now on to our special guest this week, who is part of a band known as one of the greatest soul groups of the early 70s. The group was formed in the mid 50s as a doo-wop act. They joined Motown and later left that label to produce a number of soul classics like this one.
The band, in case you haven’t guessed it yet, are Detroit’s legendary Spinners, one of the most iconic and enduring group in R&B history. With a towering legacy spanning over 60 years, the Spinners are still very much around today, with bass singer Jesse Peck having been with the group for decades, second only to original member Henry Fambro. Jessie Peck, very nice to meet you.
Tell me a little bit about the history of the Spinners. I know that they started out back in the late 50s, didn’t they? Yes, matter of fact, to be exact, the Spinners became a group way back in 1954 in Ferndale, Michigan, before they got with Motown, where the big hit that most of us know and love came to be, and that was It’s A Shame. It’s a shame, the way you mess around with your man.
It’s a shame, the way you hurt me. It’s a shame, the way you mess around with your man. I’m sitting all alone by the telephone, waiting for your call, when you don’t call at all.
Motown, where It’s A Shame came out, and at the same time, the Spinners were making our departure as the contract was ending, and we made the move to Atlantic Records for a phone call from a lady you may know of, what’s her name? Oh yeah, Aretha Franklin. I want you to tell me about that, but you’re moving too quickly through their history. So they started, as you said, in the mid-50s as a doo-wop act, and the first of their recordings was That’s What Girls Are Made Of in 1961.
How did they get to join Motown? Well, actually there was a merger, if you will, between Tri-Fi and Motown. So if you were part of Tri-Fi during the merger, then instantly upon acceptance, then yes, you are now under the Motown umbrella, which you would think that’s a wonderful thing, especially back in that time. But for the Spinners, it didn’t mean instant fame.
It didn’t mean shows and big hits right away. The Spinners actually worked at Motown. Purvis worked in the mail room.
Bobby Smith and Henry Fambro, they were drivers. I think Henry drove very Gordy’s mom around wherever she had. Bobby Smith, he was a chauffeur as well.
In fact, he picked up the Jackson 5 when they made their first trip into Motown. He picked them up at the airport and brought them in. So the Spinners were basically working at Motown, but not as artists.
Meanwhile, Marvin Gaye, who actually played drums on one of the Spinners’ earlier songs, The Temptations, Diana Ross and The Supremes, these other groups were getting all the glory. They were getting the attention. The guys asked at one point, hey, what about us? When are we going to get our chance to shine? Barry was busy doing other things.
In fact, if you read his autobiography, Barry Gordy himself states that his one regret was that he didn’t spend more time with the Spinners. You gotta love them, then you miss them. That’s what girls are made for.
By the time It’s a Shame was released and Stevie Wonder wrote that song for the Spinners and it sat on the shelf for probably over a year until Stevie Wonder actually complained, hey, I wrote this song for the, when’s it going to come out? So Stevie Wonder being the golden child or one of Smokey Robinson of Motown, they pushed it out on Stevie’s complaint and it hits the airwaves and the song just took off like that. Meanwhile, at the same time, the Spinners’ contract was ending and they’re tired of sitting around and just doing nothing. Emery Fanbrough, this guy here, he got a call from Aretha Franklin, who started talking to the guys about moving to Atlantic Records.
She was doing well there and she thought it would be a better suited label for the Spinners as well. And It’s a Shame was receiving airplay finally on the air. The Spinners were making a transition to Atlantic Records.
Imagine Barry Gordy sitting in his office, he’s like, okay, we got another hit on the radio. Who’s that? Who are those guys? And the staff says, well, they’re the Spinners. He said, great, get them in my office right away.
And they told them, you’re too late, they’re already gone. Once there was a boy and girl The boy said, I love you so The girl said, I never leave you They grew older and loved each other Cause that’s the way love goes That’s the way love goes Then there’s a time Seems like you’ll never find Someone willing to love you Keep on looking, you’ll soon discover A mighty love Will sometimes make you weep and moan A mighty love You’ll see it all the name on the telephone Cause you’re all alone You need a mighty love Atlantic Records, that’s where the phrase Motown Philly was actually born. From the Spinners leaving Motown, going to Atlantic Records in Philadelphia.
And from there, all the other mega hits that we know of today were actually from. I didn’t realize that at all. That’s a great story.
And of course they spent quite a while at Motown. They must have spent years just doing those menial jobs waiting for Berry Goody to pay them some attention. Imagine that, yeah.
Waiting for your big moment there while the other groups are rising and excelling. You know, guys are coming in and just passing the Spinners up. And I’m sure it was torture.
But the Atlantic Records deal coming through. When it did, it was just major. From there, the Spinners worked with Harvey Fuqua.
He was the one that came with all those great hits. And there were other groups that he could have worked with. But he insisted.
He said, I want those Spinners. I want to work with those guys. And that’s where things came to be.
So between he and Linda Kree and one or two other great writers. But mostly those two. And that’s where most of the Spinners’ mega hits were actually born.
But baby Whenever you call me I’ll be there Whenever you want me I’ll be there Whenever you need me I’ll be there I’ll be around I do just what you say Now I found out today That all the words had slipped away There’s a chance A tiny spark may remain And sparks turn into flames And love can burn once again But I know you know Whenever you call me I’ll be there Whenever you want me I’ll be there Whenever you call me I’ll be there Whenever you want me I’ll be there Even if I have to go I don’t know I’ll be there When they did move to Atlantic, they had a new co-lead singer by the name of Philippe William. He provided an incredible sound for them too, didn’t he? He really became very well known for vocal harmonies and for his incredible falsetto voice. Yes, he did.
And then the way that came to be, originally before Philippe, it was GC Cameron. He actually sang lead on It’s A Shame, a big Motown hit. But when it came time for the Spinners to depart from Motown, well, GC decided, maybe he had a better shot staying with Motown.
So he decided to stay with the Motown label while the rest of the guys made the move, the transition to Atlantic Records. And that was when Philippe came on the scene and the fans just loved him. He was probably the most recognized spinner to this very day.
And what happened to GC Cameron? What happened to his career? Well, he came out with a couple of great songs. There’s a song, the song I love most from him, besides his singing on It’s A Shame, there was a movie called Cooley High that came out back in the day. I can’t remember the year specifically, but in that movie, there’s a song that GC Cameron sang, a song called It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday.
It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday. Wonderful singer, dynamic performer. And actually I got to meet him a few times.
Most recently was at a Motown tribute. We donated some uniforms and things like that to Motown during one of their expansions. They’re still expanding and growing, the Motown Museum.
And I think that’s fantastic. But they were finally acknowledging and recognizing the spinners. Prior to that, I had taken the Motown tour quite a few times and there was never any mention of the spinners, not even a single solitary photo.
So to at that moment be embraced by Motown as well, and being able to meet and perform with GC Cameron was a wonderful experience. The guys did go on with Felipe Nguyen and again made a number of hits with Felipe that we all know and love. It seems like GC Cameron might have pulled the wrong rein then by deciding to stay with Motown, because as you said, the spinners went on with Atlantic and had huge hits, didn’t they? One after another, they couldn’t put a foot wrong.
That’s a question that I’m going to ask him the next time I get to talk and be around GC. If you can go back to that critical moment would you have gone to Atlantic Records with the rest of the guys or would you have still made the same decision to remain at Motown? I would love to hear what he would say to that. The spinners had so many hits between 72 and 77, I’ll Be Around, Could It Be I’m Falling In Love, The Rubber Band Man.
Which is your favourite of all those hits? That is the one question that I’m asked at every interview, what is my favourite spinner song? I do my best to give an answer. I love them all the same. So I can only respond from the position of actually performing the song.
So of course for me, singing Pervis Jackson’s part, I love the famous line in Games People Play of 1245. That just sends chills up my spine. So that would be one of the songs I really love because of Pervis Jackson.
Every time I speak your name That’s just funny You say that you are so helpless too That you don’t know what to do Each night I pray There will never come a day When you up and take your love away Say you feel the same way too And I wonder what it is I feel for you Could it be I’m falling in love With you baby Could it be I’m falling in love Could it be I’m falling in love With you With you With you I have to name a number one song, beyond that it would be Rubber Band Man because it comes at the end of the show and just when the crowd thinks we’ve done everything we could possibly do from singing the songs, the choreography, from the outfits, me doing splits on stage and all that good stuff, there comes Rubber Band Man and what an incredible song that was. The Spinners didn’t even like that song when it was first presented to them in the studio. They could kill us so they thought, the guys didn’t like it.
It was their least favorite song. Yeah, once it came out it became a hit. Bobby Smith, he would say himself, once it was released, oh I love Rubber Band Man, great song.
But for me that’s probably, if I have to pick one, that would be the greatest song as far as our live concert is concerned. We pull out the giant rubber bands for Rubber Band Man and at one point the entire theater goes black, all the lights are out, the strobe light comes on, all of a sudden it’s the 70s again and we’re dancing with the rubber bands and the crowd’s just going crazy.
This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. The Rubber Band Man song is about a guy who makes incredible sounds with a rubber band stretched between his toes. That rubber band sound was simulated in the bass line when the instrument was run through a device called the funk box.
The Spinner’s producer, Tom Bell, wrote this song for his son. Bell had written theme songs for all of his children, but The Rubber Band Man was the only one that was ever recorded. Hand me down the walkin’ cane, hand me down my hat.
Hurry now and don’t be late, cause we ain’t got time to chat. You and me, we’re goin’ out to catch the latest sounds. Guaranteed to blow your mind so high you won’t come down.
Hey y’all, prepare yourself for the rubber band man. You’ll never hear a sound like the rubber band man. You’re bound to lose control when the rubber band starts to jam.
Oh boy, this dude is out of sight. Everything he does seems to come out right. Harvey Fuqua wrote most of the songs for The Spinner’s, along with Linda Creed, and he requested specifically that he be allowed to work with The Spinner’s above and beyond any other group that was on the label at that time.
Why did he so believe in them? He was attracted to the harmonies. I think there was a dominant 7th chord that he heard in That’s What Girls Are Made For that got his attention, it quite thrilled him. The harmonies that The Spinner’s used was different.
It wasn’t the standard harmonies that you would hear from the other old school groups. It was different. If you’ve ever heard the guys do Route 66, you know, you have to hear that song.
That’s a beautiful song. There’s even Tenderly. Purvis has a part at the end of that song where all the singing stops.
Purvis says, tenderly. Tenderly. You grew up listening to them, didn’t you? You were a huge fan as a child.
Not only did I grow up listening to The Spinner’s, the first concert I ever saw as a child was a Spinner concert. My parents took us, my brother and sister and I, to a local state fair. Later in the evening, they’re dragging us to this concert, and all I’m thinking is, well, Dad, you promised me I could ride the bumper cars again, you know, but now we’ve got to sit at this concert.
It’s Mom and Dad’s turn to have a good time. Of course, the Magic Kids were sitting there, and the guys come out on stage, and as soon as they started performing, I’m like, oh, I know these songs from the radio, so I’m enjoying it, just like the kids we see today who come to our concerts under duress. By the third song, oh, no, it was when Purvis sang, when they sang Games People Play, when Purvis hit that line, go 45, and the crowd just erupted from that simple line.
And I looked at my parents, I said, Mom and Dad, I said, that’s what I want to do when I grow up. Games people play Night or day They’re just not matching What they should do Keep me feeling blue Been down too long Right, wrong, I just can’t stop it Spending all day Baby, just love you Twelve forty-five Headed for the subway home I took my time Cause I felt so all alone Not far away I heard a funny sound Took a look around and I Could see her face Smile as she came Calling out my name So I know where to go We’ll take it slow I guess I’ll call it a day I had no idea as a child, in saying that, that that’s the actual group that I will be a part of as an adult. So, wonderful for me to join the group that was my first concert experience.
It’s been tremendous, and I enjoyed and loved having the approval of Henry Fambro, original spinner, Bobby Smith, original spinner, and even the gentleman whose parts I was singing, the legendary Purvis Jackson, who was deceased at that time, that’s why I auditioned and was able to come in. The entire family from Purvis Jackson, they all accepted me with open arms. Jesse, the original Spinners had all gone to high school together, hadn’t they? And they formed the group then, originally known as the Domingos, yeah? Yeah, and that’s a trivia question that I ask the fans.
I tell them, I take them back down memory lane, and I say, well, 1954, a group of guys got together, they formed a group, they called themselves what? And the fan says, the Spinners. And I go, eh, wrong. And I tell them about the original name, the Domingos, and that name didn’t work out.
The emcees or whoever was introducing them would call them the Flamingos, anything Domingos, and they quickly got tired of that, and it was actually Bobby Smith who said at one point he saw some wheels spinning on a car, and he said, hey, we’ll call ourselves the Spinners. And the name was changed from that day forward. We’ve been the Spinners ever since.
Ever since I met you Seems I can’t forget you The thought of you Keeps running through The back of my mind Every time I’m near you I get that urge to feel you Just touching you And loving you Makes everything right Tell me how you feel baby I never knew love before Then came you, then came you I never knew love before Then came you, then came you There was a group in Australia that was called the Spinners as well. So when they got super popular, we had to differentiate from one group to the other. So at that point, we began calling ourselves the Detroit Spinners.
We kind of cut down on the confusion. And you’ve been the Detroit Spinners ever since that time? Well, I mean, that name stuck around for a little while, but eventually that faded off, and it was just the Spinners. Maybe the Mighty Spinners at one point, but eventually it all came back to just being the Spinners.
Well, I have to say I haven’t heard of the Australian Spinners for a very long time. So you’ve outlived them for sure. So just back to Jesse Cameron.
When he left and Felipe Nguyen came in to sing, Felipe came from a very good pedigree. He’d sung with Catfish and with Bootsy Collins. And he left the group in 1977.
Why did he depart? Well, to put it mildly, Felipe was a tremendous performer. And in our business and in our field, for some of us, it gets to the point where we’re placed in such a high place by the fans, by the industry itself. Sometimes we begin to think it’s a little more about us, more so than it is about the entire group.
I know at one point Felipe wanted to change the name of the group to Felipe and the Spinners. Well, once the guys found out what the meeting was about, they basically stood up and walked out the room. Yeah, that’s not going to happen.
Oh, you don’t need to say any more, really. That explains it all. Yeah.
It was kind of that thing going on. And, you know, eventually he decided that he would do fine on his own. And so he left the Spinners at a point.
And that’s when he joined, as you mentioned, George Clinton. He did the song, Knee Deep. He’s all over that song.
He is a critical part of that song and its success. But he never achieved the level of success that he had as a Spinner once he left the group. Never missing a beat.
Yeah. Boy, was it neat. Yeah.
Not just Knee Deep. She was totally neat even when she did the freak with me. Never missing a beat.
Boy, was it neat. The girl is a freak. The girl never misses a beat.
Not just Knee Deep. She was totally neat even when she did the freak with me. It didn’t work.
No. It wasn’t fucked and no more. There’s another one to ask him if he had his time over again.
Would he do the same? Yeah. I think I know the answer to that one. It was a matter of fact.
Without being too specific, the conversation I had with Henry, he expressed to me in body as well. He was alive. God rest his soul.
That in so many words, Felipe Wynn did say, hey, you know, I learned the hard way. That basically this is where he should have stayed. Of course, Felipe passed away in 1984.
Yes. The Spinners had had a lot of hits in the late 70s. As the music started to change into disco, they adjusted their style from soul and started doing more disco medleys.
Stuff like Working My Way Back To You, Forgive Me Girl. They were able to kind of keep up and reinvent themselves, weren’t they? That’s right. By that time, Don Edwards had joined the group and he was a big part of the Spinners during the disco movement in that 70s era.
He sang Lead On, Working My Way Back To You, Forgive Me Girl. He was a great addition. He’s retired now? Yes, he is.
He’s retired. Actually, due to some health issues, John Edwards was no longer able to continue to perform. But he did join us some years back.
I think over a decade ago, we were appeared on a TV show called Unsung. He was in a wheelchair. And, you know, they brought his chair up onto the stage.
And Charlton Washington, who was singing John Edwards’ parts, he gracefully handed the mic over. And John sang his parts. And it was a very emotional moment for all of us.
It was so incredible. But Bobby and Henry were still with us at that time. So their brother, you know, their brother John Edwards got to come back and we reminisced and had a wonderful time.
That was an incredible episode and one of my greatest moments on stage as a Spinner. I can imagine. The Spinners lost Billy Henderson and Purvis Jackson in 2007 and 2008 respectively.
And that left Henry Famba as the lone surviving original Spinner. That left Henry and Bobby Smith as the last two surviving members. And Bobby Smith, unfortunately, passed in 2013.
So Henry, as it stands today, is the sole survivor. He’s the sole survivor. He’s the last man standing, the last original member, yes, of this family.
And how’s he doing? He’s doing fine. We just did a performance in D.C. It was a huge, huge honor to perform for Dionne Warwick and see her sitting there. And she was so proud and so happy.
And we couldn’t have been any happier. It was wonderful. You’ve had a few fabulous moments through this career of yours, haven’t you? We haven’t even touched the sides as yet.
Just going back to Henry. So what you’re telling me is that he kept performing with the group all the way up to 2023. Yes.
And still is able to perform and sing and is passionate about it as always. His passion is still very much there and he still wants very much to continue to perform as a Spinner and be with his guys, as he calls them. We are his guys.
But he has retired. He’s still our leader. We just don’t have him on stage with us anymore.
So for me, being the senior member of the group at this point, I’ve been a Spinner for close to 17 years now. But the time has gone by so quickly. But fortunately, I have the tutelage and the guidance of two original Spinners who are still with us, Bobby and Henry.
They used to laugh at me Their children called me names I would run and hide Feeling so ashamed Just for being born I was just a boy Punished for a crime That was not mine Life ain’t so easy When you’re a ghetto child Oh baby Life ain’t so easy When you’re a ghetto child No one tried to understand How to be the best a man could do A child’s reality Is paid for by his folks Fancy fairy tales Are bought and sold by those Who can’t well afford Time to make believe Childhood dreams can still come true Ah ha ha ha So I’ve been wondering Drowning all around Guessing it must I Do living just one time Still I’ll never know Why a child is blamed Ridiculed and shamed We’re all the same Life ain’t so easy When you’re a ghetto child I’m a witness that Life ain’t so easy When you’re a ghetto child While the crowd thinks it’s great, they love what we do, you know, Henry, Henry was a little tougher, you know. Henry sees the things that the audience doesn’t and you have to correct those things or those little cracks before they become gaping holes that the audience can’t see. There’s a very high standard for The Spinners that we have to uphold and it’s an honour to do so.
This is A Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. Hi, I’m Jessie Peck from the Mighty Spinners and you’re listening to A Breath of Fresh Air.
I’ll be working my way back to you, babe. Been playing every day. Jesse, as the Spinners lost members one after another, did Henry oversee the audition process and the selection of new members to take their place? Yes, he did, including my audition, which was only supposed to take a couple of weeks.
I auditioned when Purvis passed away in early August of 2008 and I auditioned later that month in 2008 and I asked Henry then, well, how long will this take? When will you be making your decision? And he said, well, we’ve got to do this kind of quickly. It’ll probably be a couple of weeks. That two weeks turned into three months, three agonising months of just waiting and waiting and waiting to get that call and finally in November of 2008, I did get the call from Bobby Smith and Henry Fanbo congratulating me and telling me, yes, you are now one of us.
In terms of your own background, I know that you were interested in acting at the age of about 14. You became the lead male role in the stage play Evita and you were part of a group also that opened for Millie Jackson, the Manhattans, the OJs, a whole bunch of people. So you certainly weren’t a stranger to performance on any level, were you? No, no, yeah.
I’ve been performing since the third grade and by the time I reached high school, I was actually doing gigs even then. So by the time I joined the Spinners, there was no nervousness. There was never any stage fright or anything like that.
I came to the realisation that the folks in the audience, they’re here to see you. They paid to see you. Since the stage is my home, it’s like having thousands of people in my living room and I’m the host and I throw the greatest parties, by the way.
And when you know you’re right But you got to make a little sacrifice You make it for love Whoa, yeah I never thought about the day would come When she would leave without goodbye Yes, sir She wrote a line or two up on the wall Said, I’m leaving you Though I love you too I can’t stay with you And to this very day I can never say a discouraging word Because I love you The Spinners’ choreography is the most difficult choreography of any group, old school or new, that I’ve ever seen. So I was working really hard, yeah, on the choreography to get the steps down right. The combination of dance moves and singing is pretty much a lost art today, isn’t it? There are only very few groups who still carry that tradition through.
So the demands on being a Spinner, I would imagine are far greater than if you were just joining a singing band. Can you talk a little bit about that combination and what that gives the audience? All right, well, first I have to give credit to the choreographer, the man who groomed the Spinners for their onstage performance, and that would be the legendary Charlie Atkins, C-H-O-L-L-Y. He worked with, from my understanding, all of the Motown acts, you know, and beyond, even with Atlantic Records.
He worked with the groups on their choreography, their dance moves, their stage presence and whatnot, and he was quite hard on the Spinners. He really was. There was no slacking, and maybe I wasn’t there then, but apparently he saw something in them, an ability to move and perform that made him pull out his best stuff.
Our show, performance-wise, take out the singing and just the choreography. It’s a very tedious performance. It takes a lot from an artist, from any person, to go onstage and do what we do movement-wise.
There’s no room for getting tired or anything of the sort. You’ve got to be able to step. You’ve got to be on cue.
You’ve got to be in line with the rest of the guys so we look uniform. And then on top of that, and above and beyond anything else, you have to be able to stand at that mic and sing in perfect pitch while doing your moves, so very difficult. And there are some groups that probably couldn’t cut that, but the Spinners were able to do some.
Like howdy-do Your tin soldiers, your clowns too They’re all laughing at you I’m laughing at you too Like basketball, 5,000, that was all The games you really knew, yeah Why couldn’t I beat you In the middle of a room Got no time to Count my sheep today How could I let you get away When I knew I’d need somebody soon How could I let you get away When I knew I’d need somebody soon Very few groups left today that are doing that. I mean the ones that were taught during those days of Motown, as you were saying, groups like the Temptations, the Four Tops, and the Spinners, I actually can’t, oh I suppose the Jackson 5 as well. They’d probably sum it up really, wouldn’t they? I can’t think of anybody else that’s doing that today.
Yeah, it’s kind of hard to think of anyone else that’s still doing it. I mean, and if I thought hard, the only thing I could come up with, and it would be a little while later, would be the Whispers. They were a phenomenal group from the 70s and 80s, and their choreography and their steps were just incredible.
And of course the uniforms, as you refer to them, they’re legendary pink suits. That was all part of the act too, that everybody had to dress to the nines and present as best you could. Yeah, and that’s a loss, and shout out to Harvey Trance.
He did, I want to say, almost all of the Spinners’ uniforms, but even for a lot of other Motown acts, R&B acts, country acts, rock and roll groups, they all used Mr. Trance for their uniforms. He came out with some nice pieces. You have groups today that go out and they’re all wearing different outfits, and then that’s fine if you can carry it off.
You don’t expect the Jacksons to all be dressed the same way. Everyone has an image, and it makes sense, but there are groups that today go onstage, and we’re entertaining the audience, so we’re supposed to put on all the fancy schmancy and all that, the glitz and the glam and all that, and give them a great show. Now you have entertainers who will go onstage in jeans, t-shirt, or yes, somewhere.
The audience members are quite often dressed better than the performers that are onstage. That’s a little weird to me. You had your fill and now you’re on your way Searching for what nobody knows You think that you can go just anywhere And toil with any will and soul You play with love as though it’s a game Leaving a string of broken hearts Heartbeat stopping But soon the day will come Then you’ll learn the love that you waste You’re gonna need it again and again and again Throwing a good love away Well baby, you don’t know it now You’re gonna know it someday You’re throwing a good love away Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah You don’t know it now You’re gonna know it someday You know that saying, everything old is new again? I wonder if by your continuing the legacy of The Spinners and entertaining audiences in this way still, maybe the younger groups will catch on and start doing the same.
It’s a tough ask though, isn’t it? It’s a lot more difficult than just getting onstage and performing songs. Yeah, it is. A lot of groups today, a lot of performers today don’t have to work as hard as The Spinners did or as we do to this day.
A lot of performers use tracks in their show where the vocals are already there and maybe they’re lip syncing to the show. A lot of performers use a thing called auto-tune that corrects your pitch and your voice and makes sure you’re singing on point. To me, it makes you sound a little bit like a robot, but there are a lot of folks who kind of, for lack of a better term, cheat their way into an awesome performance.
But for us, it’s all the real deal. And Jesse, what do you think it is about the songs that you’re doing that still resonate so strongly with an audience? Because it’s not just an heritage audience that you have, people that were around at the time, it’s people of all ages. And the songs are still as relevant today as they were in the 60s and 70s.
What is it about those songs? I think it’s the quality of the music. I think it’s the sincerity of the music. I think it’s the pureness of the music.
These aren’t just songs that are thrown out hoping that they’ll stick to the wall, hoping that folks will catch on. Back then, music was more solid. It was a lot less gimmicky.
You had to really have the strong content. You had to have great lyrics, great music behind it. You had to have artists singing the music that the audience could relate to or look up to and admire.
These days, they just kind of paint out, take a person and run them through a conveyor belt or whatever. Painting, stamp, this, that, and the other, voice, you know, boom, our next big thing. You know, for an album, two, and then you don’t hear from them anymore.
But the music from the Spinners touched the hearts of our fans as they were children. And even now as adults, it reminds them of when they were kids, when they were coming up. Our music reminds them of their first kiss.
It reminds them of their first breakup. I’ve had fans for years, I’ve heard fans walking up to us and saying, you know, yeah, well, my child was conceived, you know, during your song. I’m like, oh, God, you told us that? Or we get married to a Spinner song, which is awesome.
So our music was the soundtrack to the lives of millions and millions of people. The Spinners’ music, like the Temptations, like the Four Tops, like the Supremes, and so on, it’s music that you hear five years from now, 10 years from now, and it still strikes that pleasure nerve. It still makes you feel good.
Well, for you, an absolute dream come true. You couldn’t have imagined being with any other group except for one that you held up in such high esteem. Just to finally share a little bit about this latest long overdue accolade that’s been awarded to the Spinners, please.
Well, first of all, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has nominated the Spinners four separate years. The first three years, nothing came of it. So the fourth year, we decided, you know what, we’re really going to campaign and do our part to help push this.
So every city that we performed in, we were urging our fans, you know, to cast their votes. We were online, on our webpages and such, and just asking everyone on a daily basis, if you love us, if you think we deserve to be there, please cast your votes. We’re really pushing hard to have the Spinners be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame while Henry Fambro is still here on God’s green earth.
So when we finally got the induction for this fourth year that they’ve nominated us, we were extremely happy, you know, mainly for Henry because he deserved this. So it was great to see him get his due. Jesse, thank you so much for your time today.
What a lovely chat we’ve had and how interesting to listen to your stories about the Spinners. Thank you so much. All right, thanks, Sandy.
Take care. Bye. Bye, Sandy.
It’s a beautiful day. You’ve been listening to A Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kay. Beautiful day.
Oh, baby, any day that you’re gone away, it’s a beautiful day.