Covered: Pam Sawyer: 1965-1979

Here's a Covered album for yet another unjustly obscure Motown songwriter. This one, Pam Sawyer, has an especially interesting backstory.

If you look at the image of Sawyer on the cover of this album, you can start to see why she has an interesting story. In the 1960s, there were very few female songwriters of soul music. Sylvia Moy paved the way at Motown Records, and Valerie Simpson later came along, but that was about it. Furthermore, the fact that Sawyer was white, and blonde haired and blue eyed to boot, made her career even more unusual. But the real kicker was that she was British!

Sawyer was born on the outskirts of London, England. She had no special musical background, but she married an American arranger and producer named Bob Mersey. Because of him, she moved to New York City in the early 1960s. They soon divorced, but she decided to stay there and try making a career out of being a songwriter. She teamed up with another aspiring female songwriter, Lori Burton. Together, they wrote a few minor hits in 1965 and 1966, especially "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" by the Rascals. 

After starting to get a successful track record, they applied to join Motown Records as songwriters. They passed the audition in 1967. They were told to stay in New York City and send their recordings to Motown's headquarters in Detroit, but for about a year it seemed all their efforts were being ignored. Burton got frustrated and quit the music business. Sawyer, by contrast, decided she'd have more of an impact if she moved to Detroit and worked there. That's what she did, and it wasn't long before her songs started to get recorded by Motown's soul music stars.

Her first really big success at Motown was co-writing "Love Child," which was a Number One hit for the Supremes in 1968. However, I've already posted the Supremes version in Frank Wilson's Covered album, so I'm including a version by the Tymes from 1970 instead. She typically co-wrote songs. For instance, several here were also co-written with Wilson. She also wrote a few with a woman outside Motown, Gloria Jones, who had a somewhat successful career as a soul singer. (For instance, she recorded the original version of "Tainted Love" in 1965.)

She generally was treated as a second tier songwriter, meaning she didn't often get to work with Motown's top stars. However, she took part in many hits. For instance, "If I Were Your Woman" was Number One on the U.S. R&B singles chart for Gladys Knight & the Pips in 1970, and "Love Hangover" was Number One on the U.S. singles chart for Diana Ross in 1976. 

However, her efforts petered out around the end of the 1970s as musical tastes changed. She left Motown and moved to Florida. She is still alive and 86 years old as I write this in 2024.

The songs here are generally the original hit versions, aside from "Love Child." A couple of the songs are the same versions as on Frank Wilson's Covered album, like "Livin' in Shame" and "Gotta Hold on to This Feeling," since I couldn't find worthy versions by other musical acts. Actually, this version of "Livin' in Shame" is included on the Berry Gordy Covered album too.

Here's a Wikipedia link about her:

Pam Sawyer - Wikipedia

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore (Rascals)
02 Try to Understand (Lulu)
03 You're My Baby [And Don't You Forget It] (Vacels)
04 Slow Fizz (Sapphires)
05 Yesterday's Dreams (Four Tops)
06 My Whole World Ended [The Moment You Left Me] (David Ruffin)
07 I'm Livin' in Shame (Supremes)
08 Love Child (Tymes)
09 Gotta Hold on to This Feeling (Jr. Walker & the All-Stars)
10 If I Were Your Woman (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
11 T.L.C. [Tender Loving Care] (P.J.)
12 Take Me Girl, I'm Ready (Junior Walker & the All)
13 I Ain't Going Nowhere (Thelma Houston)
14 My Mistake (Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye)
15 Love Hangover (Diana Ross)
16 You Can't Turn Me Off [In the Middle of Turning Me On] (High Inergy)
17 I Thought It Took a Little Time [But Today I Fell in Love] (Diana Ross)
18 Pops, We Love You (Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson & Stevie Wonder) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/17301670/COVRDPAMSWYR1965-1979_atse.zip.html

covered:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/oGYQZxxf

I could only find two photos of Sawyer whatsoever, and both of them were black and white with fairly crappy image quality. I picked the better one and colorized it using the Palette program. Then I ran it through the Krea AI program. To show you how that program helps make something from practically nothing (plus some work I do in Photoshop), here's the original.

It makes me happy that with this Covered series, we're finally getting a good look at what some of these obscure songwriters looked like when they were young.