Don Davis

Detroit-based producer Don Davis started out as a teenaged jazz guitarist who began doing recording sessions during Detroit's soul music heyday as soon as he graduated from Central High. He can be heard on sides on Ed Wingate's Golden World label and early sessions for Motown Records. Stax executive Al Bell brought Davis and singer Johnnie Taylor together in 1968 with the idea of trying to merge the Detroit sound and the Memphis sound into a cohesive whole. Davis overheard the song "Who's Making Love" written by Homer Banks, Bettye Crutcher, and Raymond Jackson one day in a studio. Several Stax producers had passed on the song due to its overt-for-its-time sexual content. Unencumbered by its upfront delivery, Davis produced and played guitar on the track with Stax musicians, guitarist Steve Cropper, Jackson, and Banks, singing the chorus with Taylor. The million-selling "Who's Making Love" parked at number one R&B for two weeks and peaked at number five pop on Billboard's charts in fall 1968. Other Davis-produced Top Five hits on Taylor are: "Take Care of Your Homework," "Testify," "Love Bones," "Steal Away," and "I Am Somebody, Part 2." Taylor's second number one record started out as a jam session between the Stax musicians. Several months later, Davis' friend James Wilson was trying to persuade him to go out. While making a phone call, Wilson told the person on the other line, "Ain't no use in going home, Jody got your girl and gone." Davis latched on to the phrase and thought it would be an idea for the Stax jam track. He collaborated on the song with Wilson and his friend Kay Barker. At United Sound, he overdubbed horns and The Dramatics singing on the chorus. The Chicago market was one of the first "going on the record," ordering 35,000 copies its first day of release and 70,000 more two days later. "Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone" stayed at number one R&B for two weeks in 1971. Taylor's next number one R&B single was a song Davis had begun writing in 1965. Two songs short while working to complete Taylor's Taylored in Silk LP, Davis chose an eight-year-old song. The basic track was cut at Muscle Shoals Sound in Alabama with members of its famed rhythm section: bassist David Hood, drummer Roger Hawkins, guitarist Jimmy Johnson, keyboardist Barry Beckett, and Davis overdubbing strings at United Sound. "I Believe in You (You Believe in Me)" was a gold single, holding the number one R&B spot for two weeks in 1973. If you hear a Sam Cooke influence on the track, that's understandable because Taylor replaced Cooke in The Soul Stirrers and recorded for Cooke's SAR Records in the early '60s.

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