Motown veteran Bobby Taylor’s Hong Kong years - friends pay tribute to singer/producer who discovered Jackson 5
Taylor, who discovered the Jackson 5, spent the last eight years of his life in Hong Kong, where he performed and mentored young up-and-coming singers
Singer, record producer and music educator Bobby Taylor, who died on Saturday aged 83, was best known for the role he played in getting Michael Jackson and his brothers their first record deal. But his career in the music business lasted almost 60 years, the last eight of them in Hong Kong.
Canadian-born Taylor’s first big break was as the lead singer of Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers, a soul band based in British Columbia that signed with Berry Gordy’s Detroit-based Motown Records in the late 1960s.
The group, which also included future actor/comedian Tommy Chong of the Cheech & Chong comedy duo on guitar, had a hit in 1968 with Does Your Mama Know About Me.
However, Taylor’s biggest contribution to Motown – and one the record company tried to play down – was arranging an audition for the Jackson 5, and subsequently producing some of their early recordings.
He received no credit for much of his work with the group because Motown preferred to associate them with established star Diana Ross, but the Jacksons did not forget him. When the surviving brothers played a charity concert in Hong Kong at the Convention and Exhibition Centre in 2014, Taylor attended as their guest, and they paid tribute to him on stage.
Taylor came to Hong Kong in 2009 after spending several years in Beijing running a studio, and went into partnership in a Soho bar, the Skylark Lounge, with David Cosman. He sang there regularly and a number of his performances from that period can be seen on YouTube.