{"id":14407,"date":"2018-04-11T05:30:15","date_gmt":"2018-04-11T09:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=14407"},"modified":"2018-04-13T07:30:16","modified_gmt":"2018-04-13T11:30:16","slug":"soul-stalwart-sidney-barnes-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/04\/11\/soul-stalwart-sidney-barnes-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Soul Stalwart: Sidney Barnes (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Continued from Part One<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

The group with Barnes and Feemster cut a demo recording \u201cI spent $10 to make it,\u201d Barnes says. He played it for one of the members of Little Anthony’s group, who loved it. They rehearsed with Anthony, and were heard by talent scout William Parker. Parker got the group an audition with George Goldner’s End record label in New York City, but they didn’t land a deal. \u201cWe were from out of town, and we didn\u2019t have a lot of originals,\u201d Barnes explains. The group soon broke up.<\/p>\n

But Barnes’ ambition wouldn’t allow him to give up. While he wasn’t religious, one night he looked up at the stars, and spoke. \u201cI know you\u2019re in charge and not me,\u201d he recalls saying to the sky. \u201cBut I’ve gotta do this. I don\u2019t wanna be a star. I\u2019m not interested in making a lot of money. I just wanna be in this because I love it, and if there\u2019s anything you can do to help me…\u201d He’s sure he got a positive reply.<\/p>\n

Barnes met Bobby Darin when the popular singer had a live date at the Howard. The two became friends, and Darin recommended him to his producer-manager Herb Abramson. But Abramson was in New York. \u201cSo I got a job cutting grass, and saved up to about $150,\u201d Barnes says. He announced to his father that he would be moving to New York City. \u201cNo, son,\u201d the elder Barnes replied, \u201cYou ain’t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sidney’s father knew best. \u201cAs naive as I was, and I wouldn\u2019t have lasted the bus ride,\u201d he says. \u201cSomebody would\u2019ve ripped me off, because I would\u2019ve said, ‘Hey. Look, how much money I have!’\u201d Instead, Barnes’ father decided to move his family once again, this time as close as he could get to New York. They ended up across the Hudson River in New Jersey.<\/p>\n

Once settled there, Barnes began making daily bus trips to two Manhattan restaurants \u2013 the Turf and Jack Dempsey’s \u2013 and the front entrance of the Brill Building, home to offices of top pop songwriters. He rattles off a few of the writers and artists he’d encounter in New York: \u201cThe Moonglows, the Solitaires, Phil Spector, Jackie Wilson, Lloyd Price, Otis Blackwell, you know, all those guys \u2026 and Sam Cooke. Those guys took me under their wing, and so before I knew it, I was doing background for demo artists.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"One of those demos, \u201cThere’s No Forgetting You,\u201d caught the attention of a music business figure Barnes prefers not to name. \u201cIt\u2019s the prettiest thing I ever heard,\u201d the man said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got Johnny Mathis beat by a mile.\u201d He offered Barnes a contract, a ten-year deal that would split profits 50\/50. But Barnes was wary. \u201cI read a Sammy Davis Jr. book a long time ago,\u201d he says, \u201cand it said how once they got you, they got you.\u201d With the knowledge that the man was mob-connected, Barnes passed on the deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood thing, too,\u201d he says. \u201cBecause I would\u2019ve missed Motown, I would\u2019ve missed a lot of other stuff.\u201d That other stuff started happening soon, too. Tiny Gemini Records released a song he wrote called \u201cWait, My Love,\u201d a local hit. \u201cI remember coming home one time late at night,\u201d he says. \u201cI didn\u2019t have bus fare or either the bus stopped running or something, and it was raining like cats and dogs. I was at the corner waiting on the light to change, and this guy came by in his car with his radio booming, playing ‘Wait, My Love.’ I was soaking wet, and I said, ‘Goddamn, I\u2019m on the radio!’\u201d<\/p>\n

Barnes decided he wanted to be in a group and collaborate. So he hooked up with George Kerr in the Serenaders. The group soon landed a contract with Riverside Records, where they’d release a single, \u201cAdios, My Love\u201d b\/w \u201cTwo Lovers Make One Fool.\u201d<\/p>\n

But things really took off for Barnes in 1962 when he learned that Motown Records was planning to open a New York office run by Berry Gordy’s estranged wife, Raynoma. By sheer dint of determination, Barnes scored an audition for his group. At the audition, a man was sitting nearby, reading a newspaper obscuring his face. The group’s performance included Barnes’ original tune \u201cIf Your Heart Says Yes.\u201d \u201cWe sounded like a black Four Seasons,\u201d Barnes says. Ray was impressed, as was the man behind the paper, Berry Gordy himself. Ray said, \u201cI found our boys.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band went to Detroit and started recording; the Funk Brothers studio cats played the instrumental parts. And Gordy installed Barnes and Kerr in the New York office. \u201cWe went from hanging out at the corner with little briefcases of songs in our hands to upstairs in the Brill Building at Motown, running the place,\u201d says Barnes. \u201cWe were the darlings of New York at that time. We were hanging out with Smokey Robinson and that group of friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"They also began writing and recording with George Clinton, then leading the Parliaments. The team cut literally hundreds of demo recordings, including songs that would be recorded by the Chiffons and the Shangri-Las. \u201cOur songs, other people’s songs,\u201d Barnes says. \u201cEverybody at that time wanted a Motown song.\u201d Most of the sessions took place at A-1 Studio, run by Herb Abramson. \u201cHerb and I fell in love with each other,\u201d Barnes says. \u201cHe became my musical godfather.\u201d When the Motown New York office collapsed \u2013 owing to friction between Berry and Ray Gordy \u2013 Barnes started writing and recording for Abramson’s labels.<\/p>\n

Barnes also partnered with songwriter J.J. Jackson. The duo refined a successful working method. \u201cWe\u2019d get together on a Sunday, buy some wine, and we\u2019d go somewhere and write three or four songs,\u201d Barnes says. \u201cThen, Monday and Tuesday, we\u2019d go out on the strip in New York and go into publishers and say, ‘We\u2019ve got songs.’ They’d say, ‘Let me hear the song. Oh, I like that song there.’ Then, they\u2019d give us $50 advance, and we\u2019d split it. So, we did that all week and we ended up with quite a little bit of money \u2013 and a drinking habit \u2013 but it was fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barnes and Jackson wrote songs for others, but the demos impressed Jeff Barry. Barnes describes songwriter\/producer Barry \u2013 husband of songwriter Ellie Greenwich \u2013 as \u201ca big, tall, white dude who wore a cowboy hat. But inside, he was black.\u201d Barnes cut \u201cI Hurt on the Other Side,\u201d \u201cYou\u2019ll Always Be in Style\u201d and several others now considered Northern Soul classics. Barnes also wrote some post-Motown sides for Mary Wells, including \u201cMe Without You.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… The group with Barnes and Feemster cut a demo recording \u201cI spent $10 to make it,\u201d Barnes says. He played it for one of the members […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14408,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,51,60,69],"tags":[3248],"class_list":["post-14407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-pop","category-rb","category-soul","tag-sidney-barnes","cat-41-id","cat-51-id","cat-60-id","cat-69-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14407"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14430,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14407\/revisions\/14430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}