Vancouver’s Motown Connection
Bobby Taylor and The Vancouvers
Vancouver, British Columbia and Detroit , Michigan are half a continent apart, but the two cities share an interesting music business connection. See all CANADA Pages
The CFUN Classics were a top-tier Vancouver R & B band during the early 1960s (see PNWBands). Following their break-up, around 1966, their talented producer arranger keyboard saxman, Tom Baird, chose to ply his trade elsewhere, eventually winding up in the Motor City, where he became a staff producer at Motown Records. Notably linked with the cross-over radio success of blue-eyed soul band Rare Earth, he was a rising star in the Motown firmament, successfully surviving the company’s relocation from Detroit to Los Angeles, California.
But Baird died in the early 1970s, mysteriously falling overboard from his yacht off Catalina Island. Nevertheless, the Vancouver/Detroit axis carried on through Motown’s 1968 signing of Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers. The group had been performing at the Elegant Parlour on Davie Street, when Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong (minus Ms. Ross) dropped by after hours during the Supremes’ week-long engagement at the Cave Supper Clup. Their timely endorsement led directly to the band’s first hit single, “Does Your Mama Know About Me,” composed by rhythm guitar-man Tommy Chong,
B.C. bass-man Dennis Marcenko (k.d. lang, Colin James) recalled visiting Motown Records Hitsville Museum while on tour in the early 1990s. “There was a plaque on the wall,” he said, “honouring Motown Records Employee of the Month . . . Robbie King.“