Diana Ross and The Supremes had just finished a two-week run at the legendary Cave Supper Club in October 1967, touring on the strength of their #1 hit "The Happening". Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson heard a Motown cover band at an after-hours club and alerted Motown Records CEO Berry Gordy. Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers signed a recording contract with Motown, and Gordy produced “Does Your Mama Know About Me,” their debut single.
The song was written by band members Tommy Chong and an old friend from my "Let's Go" TV show, Tom Baird. Tommy went on to huge success with comedy duo Cheech & Chong, and Tom Baird made a name for himself as a songwriter, arranger and producer for a number of Motown acts like Rare Earth, Gladys Knight and Stevie Wonder. At a 1968 Chicago concert, The Jackson 5 opened for Bobby and he arranged for them to audition for Berry Gordy and other Motown executives. The group was signed to Motown, and Bobby Taylor became their first producer. Bobby left Motown three years later after a financial dispute, recording sporadically into the mid-1970s.
In 2006, Bobby dropped by my CISL/Vancouver morning show for this interview. We covered a lot of ground: our early days together at CBC-TV's "Music Hop" and "Let's Go"; an early band member named Jimi Hendrix; the real meaning behind “Does Your Mama Know About Me”; the musical genius of Tom Baird; a young Bruce Allen protégé named Michael Bublé; and my meeting with Sam Cooke and Bumps Blackwell. These were special moments with an old friend.
Bobby Taylor died in 2017 at a hospital in Hong Kong, where he’d been undergoing treatment for leukemia. Tommy Chong remembered him as an extraordinary singer: “He used to do 'Danny Boy' and make everybody cry in the audience. He would hit notes that were unbelievably high and he could sound like anybody he wanted to sound like - Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Smokey. I’ve been with a lot of singers, but nothing like Bobby.”
Image: Nora Tam, South China Morning Post