LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess) – Mable John, the oldest member of Detroit’s musical John family, died Thursday (August 25) in Los Angeles. Her nephew Kevin John confirmed the news of her death. She was 91. Her cause of death was not disclosed.
Born in Bastrop, Louisiana, on November 3, 1960, her family eventually settled in Detroit. She had three sisters and six brothers, who all lived in a housing project on Six Mile. One of those brothers went on to become Little Willie John, who was one of the top R&B attractions of the day as a teenager. He took Mable on the road with him as his opening act.
Mable worked for Friendship Mutual Insurance Co. in Detroit for Bertha Berry. Bertha told Mable all about her aspiring music producer son, that’s right – the Berry Gordy. Soon, Mable was driving Berry around, and Berry was teaching her to sing and taking her to see stars like Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday.
In the book Women of Motown, Gordy told Mable to study Dakota Staton, especially. “He said, ‘I want you to watch how she walks onstage. I want you to watch how she backs away from the mic at the end of her song. I want you to watch how she takes a bow. I want you to watch how she uses her hands. You watch her because she’s very classy.’”
“Berry started as a writer and a coach for new artists,” Mable said in the book. “He would coach us; he would play piano for us. He played for years until he just decided that he was a crutch for me. The last time he played for me was Billie Holiday’s last show in Detroit (in 1959, at the Flame Showbar), just two or three weeks before she passed away. He put me on that show with her.”
According to Stax’s website, Mable said, “Billie and I worked together on the same bill in 1957, and she influenced me; I was a baby. That was the beginning of my career, and Billie spent a lot of time talking to me.”
In 1958, she became the first female artist on Gordy’s new label, Tamla. Although her first song, “Who Wouldn’t Love a Man Like That,” did not make the pop charts, it turned John into a popular live performer. She sold out shows at the famed Apollo Theater in New York City and The Howard Theater in Washington, D.C.
By 1966, she was signed to Stax in Memphis. “Motown was turning so pop, and I knew I wasn’t pop, but the writers were writing for success…Berry was so busy with the business, and I found myself without a writer to concentrate on me as Berry had concentrated on me.”
Mable’s Hayes-Porter penned hit “Your Good Thing” after the songwriters heard her talking about her then-husband, whom she’d caught fooling around with one of her cousins. In 1968, her big brother Little Willie John died while imprisoned in Washington state. Mable returned to Detroit to support the family and help organize his funeral and a memorial concert, halting her career for two years.
She returned to the business after Ray Charles offered her a job as the musical director of the Raelettes. She ended up co-writing over 50 songs with Charles.
John earned her doctorate in divinity from the Crenshaw Christian Center in 1993. As she retired, the practicing minister with her own LA church administered her food-for-the-poor program, Joy Community Outreach.
John was married four times and had four sons: Jesse, Joel, Otis, and Lemuel. Lemuel survives her, as well as several grandchildren.
