How did you form your first group The Five Tabs?

I formed The Five Tabs in 1956. I was just about to graduate from the Southwestern High School in Detroit right on Fourth Street. I met a guy there, a big fella, a bass singer called Joe Briggs, he knew these two gentlemen from Southgate, a suburb of Detroit, they had a quartet and they were singing a few country tunes and a couple of Four Aces' tunes. When I heard their four part harmonies I was blown away. We had to find a bathroom to sing in for the acoustics. We went to the Amy Joy Donuts restaurant in Lincoln Park and they had a huge men's room and we'd go to drive ins and do five part harmonies into the speaker box and launch into a doo wop song.

In 1958 you released Still Love You Baby/Will We Meet
Again on the Nasco label in Nashville.

We started getting more popular, doing gigs around Detroit, many of them free, just a cappella. Our baritone Chuck Bishop and myself wrote Still Love You Baby. We drove to Nashville to Ernie's Record Mart with our manager in his big old car and our simple tape recorder and we sang our song, they liked us, signed us, put the record out. We followed it up with Avenue Of Tears and First Star on Dot the following year.

You were drafted in 1959 and two years later teamed with Dennis Coffey then Jack Rainwater and the Peppermints.

Yes Dennis was great, he was just starting out, we had sax, piano and drums as well and played the Critics Club in Detroit. Then I joined Jack Rainwater and his band, they did show tunes mainly and it gave me a real chance to test my range and also practise my interpretation skills as we sang covers, everything from girl group singers to Ray Charles. Jack played guitar and sung, Kenny Anderson played sax, I'd been to school with him, his wife Diane played trumpet and organ and sang harmonies, the drummer was Marcus Terry, he played with Jose Feliciano later on, and Mike Sherwin was on bass.