Quitting Motown, Harvey also left Detroit behind and returned to Louisville,
Kentucky to plan his next project. Once again he had his sights on his
own record label, though unlike his early sixties ventures, this time
he would not be distributing the records himself, by hand! Fuqua III Productions
soon came into being, with an exclusive deal via the major RCA label.
He also called in an old friend from his early days in Detroit. Ann Bogan,
famous in the sixties as a Marvelette, actually hailed right back to the
Harvey/Tri-Phi labels, when she recorded a couple of duets as half of
Harvey and Ann. His new roster of talent also included the Niteliters,
New Birth and Love Peace and Happiness, and while not achieving the world-beating
status of Motown's stellar names, they saw very respectable sales and
favourable reviews. By any standards, eleven Top 40 R&B entries is not
exactly a failure!
The seventies were a relatively quiet time for Harvey, as the disco epidemic
all but wiped genuine Soul music off the map, though he scored with Sylvester
and Two Tons of Fun (aka The Weather Girls). Throughout the decade he
remained active - the surefire way of staying young - even if his profile
was somewhat less visible on the horizon than previously. |