Motown dalliance
Richie Stephens recalls time with record company
Motown Records turned 66 on January 12. The nursery for soul giants like Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, The Supremes, Smokey Robinson, and The Miracles, it was home briefly to reggae singer Richie Stephens.
Signed to a three-album deal in 1992, Richie Stephens recorded only one album for the legendary label. That set, Pot Of Gold, was released in 1993.
Stephens told the Jamaica Observer that he was approached by Motown Records executives after performing on The Arsenio Hall Show with British group Soul II Soul, with whom he collaborated on the 1992 hit single, Joy.
At the time, Stephens was riding high in dancehall circles. Signing with Motown on the heels of the Soul II Soul success seemed natural.
“I was very excited to be a part of Motown because it’s the greatest record company as it relates to black people. The fact that this album came out of that situation, I was honoured to be part of Motown,” he said.
The Westmoreland-born artiste was the first reggae act signed to Motown, which had dabbled with blue-eyed soul and rock music in the 1970s.
Pot Of Gold featured some of the biggest names in dancehall music, including producers Tony Kelly and Clifton “Specialist” Dillon, engineer Bobby Digital, drummer Sly Dunbar, saxophonist Dean Fraser, and harmony singers Brian and Tony Gold.
It contained the title track, Body Slam, and a cover of Errol Dunkley’s Black Cinderella.
The album fared poorly.
“I was a reggae artiste and they signed mainly R&B acts, so they didn’t know how to market me. If you are marketing a reggae act to an R&B crowd, it just wouldn’t work out, because they didn’t understand the music,” Richie Stephens explained.
That lack of understanding resulted in his management and Motown prematurely ending their agreement, and the artiste returned to being a free agent.
Throughout the 1990s he recorded a number of hit songs for Main Street Records and his Pot Of Gold label.
Despite the lack of success in terms of sales, Richie Stephens described his stint at Motown Records as “a great experience, and I don’t regret anything”.
Motown did not end its ties with reggae. The company distributed Holy Mount Zion, Cocoa Tea’s 1997 album, and Halfwaytree, Junior Gong’s 2001 album that won a Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album the following year.
