It is not necessarily the intention to connect one profile with another in this column, but whenever they are related, it’s hard to ignore the association. Such an occasion occurred last week. While completing a profile on the remarkable Barbara Gardner Proctor, I noticed that at one time she was at Vee-Jay Records, whose president was Ewart Abner.
Now you folks who are up on the history of Motown know of Abner’s authority and leadership at this major recording company. But what about the path to this pinnacle, the early years of striving and struggling to accomplish those significant breakthroughs?
Ewart Abner Jr., the son of a minister, was born May 11, 1923 in Chicago. In 1939, he graduated from Englewood High School and later attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., and DePaul University in his hometown, where in 1949 he earned a degree in accounting. After securing a job at the Sheridan record pressing plant to keep the company’s books, he was soon in charge of the daily operations. In 1950, he used the plant to produce his Chance Records label that included such performers as the Flamingos and the Moonglows, and several other blues, jazz and R&B hopefuls.
When his company folded four years later, Abner was hired as general manager at Vee-Jay Records, whose African American owners were Jimmy and Vivian Bracken, the company named after the first letters of their names. By 1961, he was appointed the president of the company and continued to expand a success that included recordings by the Spaniels and blues legend Jimmy Reed. Even so, Abner’s vision was much broader and that meant a variety of music, particularly with an aim to entering the pop music realm.
Major hits by Jerry Butler, especially “He Will Break Your Heart,” provided the wedge, which was followed by Gene Chandler’s “Duke of Earl,” Dee Clark’s “Raindrops,” Betty Everett’s “The Shoop Shoop Song,” and the Four Seasons great hits “Sherry,” and “Big Girls Don’t Cry.” Complementing these popular hits, the company was also instrumental in introducing the Beatles to a larger audience with their “Please, Please Me,” “From Me to You” and the rollicking “Twist and Shout.”
Like his future employer Berry Gordy, Abner was also an aspiring songwriter and collaborated on such tunes as the El Dorados’ “At My Front Door (Crazy Little Mama),” which was a top R&B single in 1955. A business disagreement in 1963 ended Abner’s run with Vee-Jay and he subsequently formed Constellation Records and commanded attention with several hits from Gene Chandler, including “Just Be True.” There was a brief return to Vee-Jay records to see if he could save the company from bankruptcy, but his ingenuity was futile and by 1966 both Constellation and Vee-Jay were history.
Abner was then summoned by Gordy in 1967 to direct his label’s artist management division. But according to Suzanne Smith in her highly informative “Dancing in the Street,” Abner had the added responsibility of overseeing the company’s educational and public service projects. She noted that Abner “was known for his outspoken advocacy for Blacks within the record industry.” She wrote, “He had worked for years with the National Association of Radio Announcers, which was the national organization of Black disc jockeys….” In his autobiography, Gordy would salute Abner and others as the most outspoken of his associates and aides when it came to social and political causes.
For six years, Abner was a vice president at the company, and then he became the president in 1973, the same year Gordy relinquished the position. In the wake of these changes the label produced five No. 1 singles—Stevie Wonder’s “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” Eddie Kendricks’ “Keep on Truckin’,” Diana Ross’ “Touch Me in the Morning” and Wonder’s “Superstition.”
At the helm of the company, Abner oversaw the careers of the Supremes, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Four Tops, Stevie Wonder and the Jackson Five. His attempts to manage the career of Marvin Gaye was challenging because Gaye was determined to be his own manager. In his biography of Gaye, author David Ritz captured a moment of their contention. “For a long while he was close to Ewart Abner,” Ritz wrote of Gaye’s relationship to Abner. But “Marvin had a falling out with Abner,” Jeanne Gay, Marvin Gaye’s sister, told Ritz.
“More and more Marvin began depending on his sister to oversee his business affairs,” Gay continued. “But then again, Marvin was never able to maintain a relationship with any manager or record executive. He turned them all into glorified secretaries. Me included.”
Ever mindful of the world beyond the recording industry, Abner was often involved in civic affairs and the Civil Rights Movement. In 1978, he co-founded the Black Music Association and served as its executive vice president. He was often called on to discuss the history of Black ownership in the music business, and in 1997 when Chicago’s Record Row was honored in a documentary, he was a key source of information.
At the time of his death Dec. 27, 1997 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, he was executive assistant to Gordy, executive president of Jobete Music company, Inc. and vice chairman of the Motown Historical Museum in Detroit.