Song:Voice Your Choice
Album:Chess Soul: A Decade Of Chicago's Finest
When you listen to the 1966 top 20 R & B hit Voice Your Choice, you might think it's a long lost Impressions song. But The Radiants were a different R & B vocal group from Chicago. They just weren't anywhere near as successful. They are good though. The group was started by lead singer Maurice McCallister along with Wallace Sampson, Jerome Brooks, Elzie Butler and McLauren Green. They started out singing gospel but switched to R & B. They sent out demos and the one guy who seemed interested was Chess Records producer Billy Davis. He was best known as Berry Gordy's pre-Motown songwriting partner. Their singles on Chess didn't sell and by 1964 they split up. McCallister had started writing for others anyway. McCallister and Sampson reformed The Radiants with Leonard Caston Jr. Caston wrote Voice Your Choice with veteran producer arranger Gerald Sims and it was released in late 1964. There's no question that Caston intended for Voice Your Choice to sound like The Impressions. It reached #16 on the R & B singles chart. The problem was that Caston started to get busy at Chess as a producer. So he left in 1965 and was replaced by James Jameson. After Baby You've Got It flopped, McCallister left. Instead of letting The Radiants die, Davis brought in The Confessions lead singer Mitchell Bullock and Leonard Caston's brother Victor and released some Confessions singles as The Radiants. They all flopped. The Radiants split up for good in 1972. Chess never released a Radiants album so you'll find Voice Your Choice on a few various artists comps like this 2CD Chess Soul comp. A small company released a Radiants comp in 2000 but it looks like they went broke and the CD isn't available. Maurice McCallister & McLauren Green formed Maurice & Mac in 1967 and they made some good singles but they didn't sell. McCallister quit the music business after that. Leonard Caston Jr. is best known for producing the Eddie Kendricks hit Keep On Trucking. Here's The Radiants performing Voice Your Choice on The Beat 1966.
No comments:
Post a Comment