Ivory Tilmon was a member of the
Detroit Emeralds and would have been 81 today. He died
the day before his 73rd birthday on 13 Sep 2014.
The Emeralds were formed as a vocal harmony group in Little Rock, AK,
by Ivory and his three brothers, Abrim, Cleophus and Raymond Tilmon.
Cleophus and Raymond left and childhood friend, James Mitchell joined.
When they moved to Detroit they renamed themselves Detroit
Emeralds.
Now a trio, they joined Ric-Tic Records and had their first hit with
"Show Time" (vocal and instrumental) in Dec 1967 which reached #22 R&B and
#69 Hot 100. They recorded another two singles with the label, "Shades Down" which was an instrumental (probably by The San Remo Strings) which
had spins on the Northern Soul scene with a cover of Bobby Gentry's
"Ode Billy Joe" on the flip in Apr 1968 followed by "(I'm An Ordinary Man) Take Me The Way I Am" (an underrated song) / "I'll Keep On Coming Back" in Jul 1968. Neither made a dent on the R&B chart.
Ric-Tic was bought by Motown in 1968 and it would seem that the
Emeralds were surplus to requirements and by 1970 signed to another
Detroit label Westbound. It is claimed that whilst touring they
recorded demos at the Willie Mitchell run Hi studios and brought them back
to Detroit to record the vocals and strings. Out of these sessions
came their next hit "If I Lose Your Love" reaching #32 on R&B chart in 1970.
They had one more minor hit
with "I Can't See Myself Doing Without You" (#41 R&B) before having a run of several crossover hits between
1971-73. Amazingly, probably their best known record, "Feel The Need In Me" failed to enter the Hot 100 (falling just outside at 110) yet it
was a UK #4 pop hit!
Whist not a hit in the US, not even registering on the R&B chart, "I Think Of You" was a UK Top 30 pop hit reaching #27 on it's fifth of a twelve week run on the chart in Sep 1973. It was released following the UK reissue of "You Want It, You Got It" (which made it to #12) to capitalise on the chart success of "Feel The Need".
The group began to split in 1974 with James Mitchell and later member
Marvin Willis along with Ivory departing and forming another Detroit
Emeralds. Abe continued with his group naming it A.C. Tilmon & The
Detroit Emeralds (presumably elder brother Ivory had rights to the
name). Mitchell and Willis also formed The Floaters, writing songs for them, who included
James' brother Paul Mitchell.
The group only had one more minor success with a re-recording of "Feel The Need In Me" in 1977 which again fared much better in the UK reaching #12 whilst
only #90 on Hot 100 and #73 R&B.
The song has been covered several times, by Graham Central Station (1974) and Forrest (1983) probably being the better ones, but Bryan Ferry and, God forbid, Shakin' Stevens covered it in 1988 and even Annie Lennox (1992) as well as several others.
The group released five albums, all on Westbound:
1971 - Do Me Right
1972 - You Want It, You Got It
1973 - I'm in Love with You
1977 - Feel the Need
1978 - Let's Get Together
Abrim Tilmon died from a heart attack in 1982 aged only 37.
You may recognise "Baby Let Me Take You (In My Arms)" as one of several samples used by De La Soul in their 1989 hit "Say
No Go". Other songs sampled include Hall & Oates "I Can't Go For
That" and Emotions "Best Of My Love".
One of De La Souls' later singles "A Roller Skating Jam Named Saturdays"
samples loads of songs and the intro is from Instant Funk's "I Got My
Mind Made Up" which prompted me to post it along with a couple of the
B sides from the 12".
The Singles
Album Tracks / B sides
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1 comment:
You are in your Birthday period including posthumously. And there you strike hard with this superb group of Detroit which did not have the desired notoriety. And yet listen to their magnificent recordings and you will certainly appreciate. They are part of the history of Soul.
Yves
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