A Side of Sublime Detroit Soul from JJ Barnes

This track can be found on the “Singles Mixer Vol. 2” podcast.

J.J. has graced these pages before, but only in a larger mix (see the “You Ain’t Too Cool” mix for probably my favorite track of his “Please Let Me In” on the Ric-Tic label) so I thought it about time to bring him to center stage for a posting all of his own.

As you can glean from the label and from listening to the first 2 seconds of the record JJ was a product of Detroit, with the bulk of his recording coming out on Detroit/Michigan based labels, with earlier works coming out on Ring (the great track “Poor Unfortunate Me”)the esteemed Ric-Tic label before B. Gordy bought the parent label Golden World and later recordings on Revilot, among others.

This record was made shortly after Barnes was released from his fruitless contract with Motown where he worked as a writer and all of his recordings were shelved due to the thinking he was too similar sounding to Marvin Gaye.  It’s an unfortunate, though accurate, criticism.  I don’t think Marvin’s career suffered any because of this record being out in the world in 1967 and I don’t think it would have hurt him if songs like this came out in the years prior. 

Co-written and Co-produced by Groovesville label head Don Davis this record foretells his future work with Stax/Volt.  After a string of hits with Barnes, Darrell Banks and a few others, Davis moved South and began bringing some of his artists with him, he also started farming out some of the string arrangements back north his old Detroit connections, a move that didn’t sit well with some of the in house people in Memphis.

Enjoy this slice of upbeat and smooth (with a touch of grit) Detroit soul .

Till next time!

-George / Snack Attack