New Birth /Niteliters
!970-1975

Harvey - 1972

It was actually Vernon Bullock who came up with the New Birth concept in 1968. He introduced the idea to Harvey Fuqua in early 1970, Vernon being Harvey's assistant at Motown at the time. Harvey liked the concept and so the pair went to Louisville to start up a new production company and audition new talent. The idea was, that until they could establish themselves, they would record some acts separately. But 'New Birth' would be used as the collective name for their signings. The acts they found were 'The Nite-Liters' (musicians/vocalists including an additional lead vocalist), 'The Gentlemen and I' (a male act), 'The Mint Juleps' (a female act), and a brother/sister pairing 'Duet'. The idea was that this group of artists would perform together as a self contained show. The act which got the first hit record would get top billing and the others would be the supporting acts. Initially the Nite-Liters would open the show, followed by The Mint Juleps, The Gentlemen and I and then Duet. To close the show, the finale, all would reappear on stage at the same time with the lead singers from the male and female acts becoming the lead singers of 'New Birth'.

The nucleus of the group, when signed, was working as house band at a local club backing the likes of Phillip Mitchell, the Originals and Chuck Jackson. Harvey handled most of the main duties with regard to the project, although Vernon did help out with production tasks. New Birth, beyond the original concept, was now an 8 member band (the Nite-Liters), the Now Sound (four men), The Mint Juleps (four women), and one additional lead singer, Allen Frey. Thus the ensemble was formed, a deal was signed with RCA Records and in 1971 the LP 'New Birth' (LSP-4450) was released. The original line-up proved too large to be economic and so the four female members were dispensed with. Apparently Harvey came to the realisation that the group needed something extra vocally and fortuitously just as he was about to start looking for the right singers, an old friend approached him. Cleveland born Ann Bogan, who had earlier sung with Harvey and had then gone on to join the Marvelettes, came to him with an idea for a new group. She brokered the idea of herself and two brothers, Melvin and Leslie Wilson, becoming a group. Melvin and Leslie, who had been born in Muskegon (Michigan), had gotten into gospel singing before they moved to Detroit. Harvey liked the idea and named the trio Love, Peace and Happiness. They were also signed to RCA, again with Harvey acting as producer. The three-some were almost immediately incorporated into the New Birth live revue with Ann soon becoming the show's featured vocalist. The outfit now consisted of 12 members, 9 of them ( the instrumentalists ) recording as the Nite-Liters and all 12, including Londee Loren and Bobby Downes recording as New Birth. In this form the whole group recorded their second album, 'Ain't No Big Thing But It's Growing' (4526) in 1972. Love, Peace & Happiness were soon fully absorbed into the New Birth line-up and they were also included on the recording of New Birth's third album 'Coming Together' (another 1972 release). In addition to these albums, a couple of Nite-Liters albums, 'Instrumental Directions' plus 'Different Strokes' and the Love, Peace & Happiness album's 'Love Is Stronger' and 'Here Tis' (LSP-4721) were also released that year. Two self written songs were included on the later album, the Melvin Wilson composition 'You've Chosen Me' and 'You Can't Cheat The Cheater', the main basics of the song being arrived at by Melvin and Ann with Leslie & Harvey helping finish it off. Melvin states that his most memorable recording session was the one for the first Love, Peace & Happiness album as this was his first ever experience of recording. Most of the whole ensemble's recording work was undertaken in RCA's New York studios the exception being Love Peace and Happiness' first album which was cut in Chicago.

Numerous singles were also released under the outfit's respective names, the first to chart, in July 71, being the Nite-Liters 'K-Gee' (RCA 0461). This made a peak position of No.17 R&B and No.39 Pop and was followed in September by The New Birth's 'It's Impossible' (0520 - a pop hit for Perry Como). The first single to chart under the Love, Peace & Happiness name was 'I Don't Want To Do Wrong' (0740 - taken from the 'Here Tis' LP) in August 1972. By the end of 1972, under their various names, the ensemble had enjoyed six R&B singles chart entries. After the 'Coming Together' album, Ann Bogan quit the music business as she had two children that her mother had been taking care of. She made the decision to come off the road to be with her children. Alan Frey, the only vocalist, in the Nite-Liters took her place. The full group now recorded its fourth album 'Birth Day' (4797 - December 72). At this point, the group consisted of Melvin Wilson, Leslie Wilson, Londee Wiggins (Loren), Alan Frey, Tony Churchill, Austin Landers, Leroy Taylor, Robert Jackson, Butch McDaniel, Robyn Russell, Bobby Downes, James Baker & Charlie Hearndon. This album included their version of the popular Bobby Womack song 'I Can Understand It' which featured Leslie on lead vocals and the track was culled from the LP to be a single (0912). The 45 entered the chart in March 73 and rose to No.4 R&B as well as making the Pop Top 40. "I Can Understand It" was a song they had started to perform on stage and it was recorded live in the studio just as if the band were playing another show. The song was captured to every ones complete satisfaction on the first take and so no additional versions were even attempted. The success of the single, stimulated sales of the album and also prompted RCA to release both the single and album in the UK. Bobby Downes had contributed next to nothing to the album and he soon left the group for personal reasons. The ensuing 12 strong New Birth line-up remained unchanged for the next four years. In addition to recording outside writers compositions, members of the group also wrote their own songs and in addition to love songs, they tried their hands at "message songs" ala Curtis Mayfield / Marvin Gaye, etc. One such song was 'Overlooked Generation', a song that Melvin, Leslie, and Ann wrote and recorded when they were Love, Peace and Happiness (actually Melvin and Anne wrote it, but because Leslie was his brother, Melvin saw to it that he received joint writers credit along with Harvey.) This track, along with the song 'Don't Blame The Young Folks For The Drug Society' was cut by Love, Peace & Happiness. 'Don't Blame The Young Folks (For The Drug Society)' was getting a lot of airplay until it was yanked off the radio for being too politically charged. The negative response to the song from some quarters changed Melvin's style of writing forever and he dropped the theme of social issues from his composition songbook. Coincidently 'Overlooked Generation' has just been recorded by Harvey Fuqua himself and the track is included on his recent Resurging Artist label CD release 'T.V.O.X. ( The Voice Of Experience )'.

The fifth New Birth album, 'It's Been A long Time' (0285), was released in November 73 and the title track, an extremely classy ballad sung by Leslie Wilson, became the groups next US single (0185). By January 74 the single was climbing the R&B chart where it eventually reached the Top 10, selling almost as many copies as 'I Can Understand It' and remaining on the chart for 17 weeks. The follow up single ( also from the LP ) was 'Wildflower' (0265), an earlier pop hit for Skylark. This again enjoyed great commercial success and although it only (!) made the Top 20 of the R&B chart, it performed better than it's predecessor on the pop chart. The LP was again released in the UK and has, with the passage of time, come to be regarded as the group's strongest ever RCA released album. Regarding the theme of the James Baker / Melvin Wilson written track, 'Pains Of Love', included on the LP, Melvin states it was written from personal experience... 'We had lovers and wives that we lost because of our love for music. We were struggling to stay in the music business because we didn't have the backing / support that lots of other artists had (from their label / management), so we never knew when we would be home and we lost a lot of loved ones because of it'... The Baker / Wilson team were to contribute numerous compositions that the group recorded. In the partnership, Melvin would develop the words & melody, whilst James worked on the music.

Harvey took all the credit for producing the group's efforts, as New Birth were signed to his Fuqua III production company. It was Fuqua III that had the deal with RCA, not New Birth directly. The people at RCA wanted Leslie Wilson to be featured more as lead vocalist but Harvey resisted this, to help ensure that he kept tight control of the group. Even though Harvey got all the producers credits, many of the songs they recorded were developed on the road. Songs would be tested out in live performance and improvements / stylistic elements incorporated. Thus the final version would be laid out long before the group ever got into the studio with Harvey. Harvey always wanted Leslie to sound more "churchy" but Melvin and Leslie would sit down together before hand and plan the songs vocals note for note. In the studio, Leslie would then generally stick to their version and not accept Harvey's suggested vocal changes ( much to his frustration ). In late 74 the group recorded their last LP for RCA, 'Coming From All Ends' and yet again the title track was released as a 45 (10242) and made it onto the R&B singles chart. 1974 also saw the release of another Nite-Liters album, 'A-nal-y-sis', and tracks such as 'Serenade For A Jive Turkey' were lifted from it for single release. With regard to live work, Leslie states .. 'a show with Barry White in New York at Madison Square Garden stands out. Even though Barry was backed by his full orchestra, New Birth pulled out all the stops & still managed to put on an amazing show. It was a great show all the way around'...For Melvin, the most memorable performance put on by the group was on a bill they shared with Earth, Wind & Fire. By all accounts they thrived on the competition provided by the other top acts of the period.

Even though the groups work for RCA had nominally all been produced by Harvey Fuqua, as numerous different lead vocalists had been featured on their releases, they wanted to break with Harvey (1975) but this also meant their departure from RCA.