My Brush With the Spinners, Old Skool R&B Hitmakers

The Spinners and I go back a long way. Yep, back to the days when they were really hot. Before we used the word "hot" like that. Back when we used cool phrases like "right on" or "sho ya right." Okay, I'm old. But I first saw the Spinners when I was in high school. On a Saturday night at the Coliseum, I pushed my way to the front row when the lights went out. I sang along with every song, word for word. When they got to the part in Rubberband Man where the "short fat guy" danced and threw his oversized rubberband into the audience, I wrestled a boy down for it and won. I thought he was a girl at first, but a closer look revealed a man/girl. I kept that rubberband for many years.

I saw the Spinners many times later in more intimate settings. Two of these stands out...In the late 1990s they came to the Hilton Hotel on Countyline, and this time I was with Ron. The lead singer, who had taken Philippè Soul Wynne's place-- the one who still had the Jheri curl-- well, he kept eyeing me. I mean it. For real. So much so that Ron pointed it out saying, "You see, you're so beautiful, he can't keep his eyes off of you." I jokingly replied that I must look like his wife. But then he made the "come here" jester with his pointer finger, asking me to come up on the stage. What? I nearly fainted. He wanted me to come up there and sing with him! Ron was trying to push me up there, but I kept saying no, no! I won out. I was not going up there!!! He soon gave up, but he kept an eye on me the entire show. I don't know what that was about.

         
The last time I saw the Spinner was around 2002 at the county fair. They put on a great show, but the short fat guy had to have oxygen after the show. Ron and I watched as they took him on a golf cart back to their tour bus. Last year, I saw the Spinners on the TV One series, Unsung, and I learned that many of them are dead now. After sharing his breathtaking falsetto in songs like Mighty Love, Sadie, and Ghetto Child, Philippè Soul Wynne left the band in 1977, and in 1984 collapsed on stage while performing at a night club in Oakland, California, succumbing to a heart attack on my birthday (July 15) at age 43. The bass singer, Pervis Jackson, a heavy smoker (well known for his standout bass lines in Games People Play) died of a heart attack in 2008; the short fat guy, Billy Henderson, who had diabetes and heart problems, died in 2004. Are you wondering what happened to my boyfriend with the Jheri curl? Unfortunately, John Edwards suffered a stroke in 2000 and is now in a wheel chair. He still sports a curl, though.