Devils & Blue Dresses: My Wild Ride as a Rock and Roll Legend

or another, coming from Motown Records. Sometimes, in conversation with other musicians, Berry Gordy was referred to as a “reverse racist.”
    I personally did not see it that way. In fact, one night at a club in Detroit a few years after I had gone to New York City, I had a conversation with Berry and he invited me to join Motown. Of course, I had already made a few hit records at that point and possibly he had not heard that Brian Holland, his top producer, had rejected me three years prior. Or, perhaps he was only joking.

     
    Another thing to consider, especially form my point of view, is how we go about picking our heroes. I fail to see any difference between a young black man admiring and wanting to emulate Lou Gerhig, and a young white man admiring and wanting to emulate Jackie Robinson. And if it is true in sports entertainment then it should very well be true in musical entertainment.
    In the late 1990s I sent a CD of my music to a black-owned record company. It was rejected without being heard because the black executives said I was “just another white boy trying to rip off the black man.” I responded by stating that I chose my heroes carefully. With love and respect, I learned and was inspired by them, and the highest tribute I could make was to try my best to integrate their teaching into my style.
    That worked for me, but I also understand that some proponents of the careful and never-ending debate over the black American experience could become defensive and accusatory, given the history and means by which black contributions to popular culture have evolved. Especially in music.
    Let us use, for example, the “black face” of Al Jolson––a white man who covered his face with black make-up and tried to sing and sound black. Nothing subtle about that. So, let us take away the black face. You still have a white man trying to sound black. I find that offensive as well. But finally, let us take a white man whose history, social and cultural experience, style and personal choices all come together in his voice and he is then perceived to sound black. That is where racism becomes elusive.
    It is tragic that, even today, young, good-looking white boys are packaged and sold to a targeted young white girl audience and one of the most desirable attributes to their talent is their ability to sound black. You may as well just come right out and say, if you were to borrow from the lengthy past on this issue, “We like the music the Negroes make but we don’t want our children, especially our daughters, to be around them.”
    I believe that music can heal. I believe it knows nothing of racism, and I believe it is given and taken as an expression of love. Having said and meant that, the boys and I were on our way to New York City where the hunger that was so deeply felt by our young white rock ‘n’ rollers in the Detroit area would now be satisfied, along with the rest of their American counter-parts. This was because we were only months away from exploding onto the music charts with our own little home-grown style of Detroit rock ‘n’ roll. And best of all, we would become ambassadors of good will for our beloved native city as we were now to be called Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels.
    But before that could happen, we had to leave our families and friends, our contracts had to be signed by our parents––as none of us were legally old enough to have that responsibility––and we had to pretend we were not afraid.

Chapter 8
     
    W HEN I SAY WE HAD TO pretend to not be afraid I don’t know that I was speaking for anyone but myself, and the type of fear I was feeling was more an uncertainty over the future than anything else. We knew we were good. We had a ton of self-confidence and, for the most part, my fear was kicked to the curb under the pure adventure and excitement of my first visit to New York City. But, Susan was pregnant and we had chosen to get married which, in a more innocent and responsible time, seemed the only thing to do. The feminist cry of “my body is my temple and I shall worship as I will” had not yet been clearly articulated. There were abortions, but not the mind boggling, insane numbers we have come to know today. And some were very dangerous, but they were a far cry from abortion upon demand, repeatedly, over and over.
    In any case, Susan was pregnant, we married, and I had to make sure I could support my new family. It was a lot of pressure for an