Marv Johnson was born in Detroit in 1938, grew up on gospel and blues, and sang doo-wop with the Junior Serenaders. Berry Gordy heard him at a Detroit carnival and made him the first release on his new Tamla label: Come to Me, in May 1959. Lacking national distribution, Gordy licensed it to United Artists, and it reached No. 30 on the Hot 100 and No. 6 R&B. Between 1959 and 1961 Johnson placed nine singles on the Hot 100, all written or co-written and produced by Gordy, including the gold records You Got What It Takes and (You’ve Got to) Move Two Mountains. The episode credits his gospel-trained but smooth delivery with crossing radio’s racial formats.
In Australia he scored eight top 40 hits and three No. 1s, with You Got What It Takes spending over 16 weeks at the top in 1960, and he toured there on Lee Gordon’s Big Show. After 1961 his US hits stopped. United Artists sent him to New York’s Brill Building to work with Leiber and Stoller, Bert Berns and Bacharach and David, without success. Back at Motown, his 1968 single I’ll Pick a Rose for My Rose flopped in the US but reached the UK top 10 in 1969 on the strength of the Northern Soul scene.
- The Australian bill included Bobby Rydell, Chubby Checker, Jackie Wilson and the Everly Brothers.
- Motown assembled a UK-only album and reissued I Miss You Baby, and he toured Britain with Martha Reeves and the Vandellas.
- In the 1970s he moved into sales and promotion at Motown.
- He co-wrote Give Your Baby a Standing Ovation, a top three R&B hit for the Dells in 1973.
- He collapsed on stage at a May 1993 tribute to Bill Pinkney in South Carolina and died two days later at 54; his headstone reads Motown Pioneer.
Leave a Reply