Legendary Interviews
Maxi Bond Of The Mary Jane Girls
JoAnne McDuffie, a back up singer for Rick since 1981, would be the only female out of a half dozen or so past Colored Girls and Mary Jane Band singers (Ricks prior names for background girls) to make the transition.James began looking for the remaining Mary Jane Girls. New York born, Cheryl Ann Bailey a.k.a. Cheri Wells was referred to Rick by a mutual friend and auditioned for him in Los Angeles. Wells already had a background in Broadway and musicals. She began her career in the entertainment industry at the age of four and had also done commercials and print ads by the time her and James would meet. As the youngest, but arguably most experienced member, Rick thought that she would be perfect as the bubbly-polka dot adorned Valley Girl. Candice "Candi" Ghant was the next singer hired. A native of Detroit, MI., Rick met her while she was working in an L.A. bar as a dancer. When presented with the character sketches, she chose the persona of the classy, sequined clad Vamp. She brought Kim Wuletich to the studio in Sausalito, CA. She was beautiful and when I saw her dance I knew she was the one." The leather and whip were passed to Kim, whom James renamedMaxi, because of her charisma and high energy personality. Maxi took her place next to Jo Jo, Cheri and Candi as the final product... The Mary Jane Girls
Leroy' Sugafoot' Bonnor- Of The Ohio Players
Leroy Roosevelt Bonner (March 14, 1943 – January 26, 2013). Born in Hamilton, Ohio, about 20 miles north of Cincinnati in 1943, Leroy Bonner grew up poor, the oldest child in a large family. After running away from home at 14, he wound up in Dayton, where he connected with the musicians who would form the Ohio Players. The band’s lineup changed over the years, but its instrumentation and sound remained basically the same: a solid, driving groove provided by guitar, keyboards, bass and drums, punctuated by staccato blasts from a horn section. Assisted by Roger Troutman and his Zapp brethren, Sugarfoot went solo in 1985 with Sugar Kiss - the same year Zapp released The New Zapp IV U (featuring “Computer Love”), while Shirley Murdock was on the verge of scoring with the Troutman-produced “As We Lay.”
Vocals were a secondary consideration. “We were players,” Mr. Bonner told The Dayton Daily News in 2003. “We weren’t trying to be lead singers.” The core members of the band did not originally sing, he explained, but “we got so tired of having singers leave us that we decided we’d just do the singing ourselves. I used to play with my back to the audience in the old days,” he added. “I didn’t want to see them because they were distracting. Then the first time I turned around and opened my mouth, we had a hit record with Skin Tight. That’s amazing to me.”
Edwin Hawkins
Edwin Hawkins is a musical multi-talent and since 30 years he has a reputation as ideal and reformer of gospel and R&B. But only very few people know, that Edwin Hawkins is now working since nearly 50 years on the big stages of the world.He started his musical career as a five year old Pianist for the Hawkins Family. When he was seven, he took over full-time playing duties for many years for the Hawkins Family group in the end of the 40's. 1957 he recorded the first album with the Hawkins. 1968 he created with Oh happy day the greatest Gospelhit of all times and in-between the lines of Gospel, R&B and Soul he developed a new musical style, that became well-known in the Gospel-Scene as Contemporary Gospel Musicand which is influencing Popmusic even today.It was unforeseeable, that it came so far. 1967 Edwin Hawkins founded together with Betty Watson the 'Northern California State Youth Choir' and 1968 this group recorded its first album with the title Let us go into the House of the Lord.It seemed to be a very normal production, recorded live as two-track-recording with 500 copies, like many others at that time. But something was different: this mixture of traditional Gospelmusic sounded so much like R&B - a creation, that was unknown in Gospelmusic and in R&B as well.
