Vivian Carter, founder of VeeJay Records, and the Spaniels, a prominent doo-wop group, are examples of Gary's musical culture.
[b] Keith also points out that he had himself went solo as a vocalist in the 1960s because he wearied of the lack of discipline and commitment of so many of the young singers he sang doo-wop songs with.
[7] Keith signed the Jackson Five to a six-month management and recording contract with him on November 21 that year, at a time when, oddly, not one of the numerous labels in the region would take them on.
Atlantic Records/Atco in New York City pressed and distributed several thousand copies of "Big Boy" with the Steeltown label and Atco record sleeve.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum owns a copy of one of the original "Big Boy"/"You Changed" records (Steeltown #681), and this was on display there in 2010.
They sang some James Brown, 'Cold Sweat', Jackie Wilson, "Doggin' Around", some Smokey Robinson, the Temptations, 'My Girl' and 'Just My Imagination'.
The masterpiece of these recording sessions is Big Boy, written by Chicago musician and songwriter Eddie Silvers.
Powerful, now legendary, disc jockeys E. Rodney Jones and Pervis Spann of Chicago's fabled black AM radio station WVON, told Keith they had spent $40,000 on the Jacksons and still could not get them a record deal.
There were dozens of record labels in Chicago at the time, and Motown also returned tapes sent to them by Joe Jackson, without comment.
Keith then spoke to the Leaner Brothers who owned a prominent local record label named One-derful!
Keith's relating of this story to a local journalist led to the August 2009 discovery by the Leaners’ children of a master recording in the One-derful!
[12] It may be worth noting, that a young singing group of siblings, the Five Stairsteps, were contemporaries of the Jacksons and were then being produced in Chicago by the late Curtis Mayfield.
They ultimately had only one major hit, but may have been part of the reason the Jackson 5 group could not get signed in Chicago, just as Berry Gordy, the owner of Motown, did not yet want the trouble of working with minors which he was experiencing with Stevie Wonder over in Detroit.