Covered: Frank Wilson: 1964-1977

Next up for my Covered series highlighting great songwriters is Frank Wilson.

If you haven't heard of Frank Wilson, don't kick yourself. One of my main reasons for doing this series is that I believe many songwriters who weren't also famous performers have been mostly forgotten and need more recognition for their musical accomplishments. Wilson is a classic case of being forgotten. The main reason people know anything about him at all is due to one single featuring him performing that has a curious history. (I'll get to more about in a minute.) But he was one of probably about a dozen or so songwriters behind the vast majority of hits at Motown Records in the 1960s.

Like a lot of people, Wilson got a non-musical job at Motown Records at first, just to get his foot in the door. Soon, though, he was put on the payroll as both a songwriter and a producer. It turns out he had a good, soulful voice, and easily could have been a star in his own right. 

A single with him as the lead vocalist was due to be released in later 1965 (that he co-wrote) called "Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)." About 250 demos were physically created. But, as Wikipedia explains, "Owing to a combination of Wilson deciding that he would rather focus on producing and Motown's Berry Gordy's lukewarm reception of the vocals and wish to prevent his producers from having a successful recording career, the demos were destroyed." Luckily, at least two copies of the demos survived. In the 1970s, one of them was discovered by soul aficionados in England (what is known as the "Northern Soul" movement). That led to it being reissued (at first illegally and under false names), and becoming a minor hit. It has since been deemed something of a lost classic. For instance, Bruce Springsteen recorded a version on his 2022 album "Only the Strong Survive." The one copy of the demo available for sale was bought for about $30,000 in 2009!

Here's the Wikipedia article about the song and it's strange history:

Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) - Wikipedia

If all Wilson did was write and sing that song, he wouldn't be worthy of an album in this Covered series. But he wrote or co-wrote many Motown classics. Just look at the song list below. He only gets one album, because he wasn't very prolific, but almost every song was a hit and most are considered classics.

In addition to writing songs, he produced many more, for a wide variety of musical acts. However, things gradually fell apart for Motown Records in the 1970s, as musical trends changed and much of the talent drifted away. Wilson left Motown around 1976 and dabbled a little bit as a songwriter and producer outside of Motown. The last song here, from 1977, is the only post-Motown one included. However, that didn't last long, because he quit the music business altogether and became a preacher. He later wrote two best selling religious-themed self-help books. He died in 2012 at the age of 71.

Here's his Wikipedia entry:

Frank Wilson (musician) - Wikipedia

As usual, the songs are presented in chronological order by year of release. These generally are the original versions for each song. The one oddity (aside from the last song that I mentioned above) is "I'm So Thankful," because that was a hit by the Ikettes, a non-Motown group.

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 Castles in the Sand (Stevie Wonder)
02 Do I Love You [Indeed I Do] (Frank Wilson)
03 I'm So Thankful (Ikettes)
04 Sweeter as the Days Go By (Marvin Gaye)
05 Whole Lot of Shakin' in My Heart [Since I Met You] (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)
06 You've Made Me So Very Happy (Brenda Holloway)
07 All I Need (Temptations)
08 Just Look What You've Done (Brenda Holloway)
09 Love Child (Supremes)
10 Chained (Marvin Gaye)
11 I'm Livin' in Shame (Supremes)
12 Stoned Love (Supremes)
13 Still Water [Love] (Four Tops)
14 Up the Ladder to the Roof (Supremes)
15 Girl, You Need a Change of Mind (Eddie Kendricks)
16 Keep on Truckin', Part 1 (Eddie Kendricks)
17 Boogie Down (Eddie Kendricks)
18 Look What You've Done to My Heart (Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17289742/COVRDFRNKWILSN19641973_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/y66VANXF

Because Wilson is such an obscure musical figure, there are very few photos of him, and none of them are color photos from when he was young. Luckily, I found a good one from about 1966, and colorized it using the Palette program. I also changed his eyes so he would be looking at the camera.