Johnny Bristol was born in 1939 in Morganton, North Carolina, and while in the US Air Force in the late 1950s he met Jackie Beavers and formed the soul duo Johnny and Jackie. By 1959 they recorded for Anna and Tri-Phi, labels run by Gwen Gordy and Harvey Fuqua. When Motown absorbed Tri-Phi, Bristol apprenticed under Fuqua as a writer and producer, working on Ain’t No Mountain High Enough for Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell and Edwin Starr’s 25 Miles. He pushed singers to the top of their range for urgency and married Iris Gordy.
He became Motown’s transition specialist, producing final singles for Diana Ross and the Supremes and for Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. Someday We’ll Be Together, which he first recorded with Johnny and Jackie in 1961, was cut by Ross without Mary Wilson or Cindy Birdsong, with the Waters sisters on backing vocals; his own shouted encouragements stayed in the mix. Leaving Motown in 1973, he produced at CBS, including Boz Scaggs’ Slow Dancer, then signed with MGM. Hang On in There Baby reached the US top 10, No. 2 R&B and No. 3 in the UK, and he was nominated for the Grammy for Best New Artist in 1975, losing to Marvin Hamlisch.
- The Miracles’ farewell he produced was We’ve Come Too Far to End It Now in 1972.
- The Osmonds covered his song Love Me for a Reason and took it to No. 1 in the UK.
- His 1980 medley of My Guy and My Girl with Amii Stewart reached the UK top 40.
- In 1989, on Motor City Records, he recorded his own version of What Does It Take (To Win Your Love), his hit for Junior Walker and the All Stars.
- He died in Michigan in 2004 at 65 and entered the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009.
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