G.C. CAMERON - GIVE ME YOUR LOVE / THE GREEN BROTHERS - YOUR LOVE LIFTED ME

Every soul fan will be familiar with “It’s A Shame”, one of the most definitive 70s soul releases of all time, written and produced by Stevie Wonder – the first he’d produced for another group. How many realise though, that the song has two lead vocals – both by G.C. Cameron? Extraordinary vocal gymnastics for sure, and a performance that will cement his place in soul music history – he’d joined the group and suddenly was enjoying the benefits of their most successful record. Of the seven octaves, I am sure that G.C. goes through at least five of them on that song alone; a natural born singer – one of a kind.

Motown had picked up The Spinners by purchasing the Tri-Phi label in 1963, and it seemed to have been decided quite quickly that when their contract was finished, they would not be held back from moving on. However, by then Cameron had married Berry Gordy’s sister, Gwendolyn, and the couple were living it large in Beverly Hills. So he decided to stay with Motown whilst The Spinners moved to Atlantic in 1971 and went on to have 27 more Top 100 hits. He recorded a few singles on the subsidiary label MoWest plus 3 albums; G.C. Cameron, Love Songs & Other Tragedies and You’re What’s Missing In My Life, the latter being cited as one of Motown’s 10 best albums of all time;

By 1980, fed up with the decadence, G.C. Cameron went back to live in his parents’ trailer in McCall, MS. He became more involved with the church and re-evaluated his life, but by 1983 he was at the Malaco studios in Jackson, MS, recording the album Give Me Your Love, which wasn’t a ground breaker but did contain the sublime title track, a mid-pacer that is so perfect for the Modern Soul scene. It was LP (or cassette!) only so really did get overlooked, but is now available on 7” vinyl for us all to enjoy – quite possibly one of George Curtis Cameron’s best recordings.

Give Me Your Love

Audio Recorded via an iT TUSB05 USB Turntable direct to Audacity with no additional processing and exported as .320 MP3