Hank Cosby

Henry (Hank) Cosby, songwriter and record producer: born Detroit 1928; married (three sons, and one son deceased); died Detroit 22 January 2002.

Except by the keenest soul-music fans, Hank Cosby's important contribution as a songwriter and record producer for the Tamla-Motown organisation has not been recognised. Cosby himself never stressed the significance of the role he played, passing the major credit to Stevie Wonder for the songs that they wrote together.

Cosby, who was born and raised in Detroit in 1928, wanted to be a musician and learnt the tenor saxophone. As well as serving in Korea, he also played in a military band. Another soldier, Cannonball Adderley, invited him to join his group when they were demobbed. Cosby declined the invitation as he wanted to return to Detroit.

In the late 1950s, Cosby played with the Joe Hunter band, which included James Jamerson on bass and Benny Benjamin on drums. They accompanied Jackie Wilson and befriended Wilson's manager, Berry Gordy, who was setting up the Tamla-Motown organisation. Hunter was replaced by Earl Van Dyke and the revised line-up, collectively known as the Funk Brothers, played on many of the first records. Cosby said, "We had in-house everything: in-house engineers, in-house studio, in-house arrangers and in-house musicians. Everybody was there seven days a week around the clock." They also did some moonlighting, playing on John Lee Hooker's 1962 blues single "Boom Boom".

Gordy asked Cosby to work with the 12-year-old Little Stevie Wonder. In 1963 Wonder's fledgling talent was captured on a remarkable album recorded at the Fox Theatre in Detroit. The highlight was the anarchic "Fingertips", which highlighted Wonder's harmonica and was co-written by Cosby. As a single, it topped the US charts and its most endearing moment is when Wonder returns for an encore and a musician shouts, "What key? What key?" Cosby also wrote Wonder's follow-up, "Workout Stevie Workout".

Appreciating Wonder's ability to make exciting records, Cosby took him to a Baptist church to hear the preacher shouting and screaming. Wonder duplicated the frenzy in his songs and "Uptight (Everything's Alright)" is as defiant as any punk record from the 1970s. As a general rule, Stevie Wonder would come up with a melody, and Sylvia Moy would write the lyric and Cosby the arrangement. All three shared the songwriting credit and the hits included "Uptight (Everything's Alright)" (1966), "I Was Made To Love Her" (1967), "Shoo-Bee-Doo-Bee-Doo-Da-Day" (1968) and "My Cherie Amour" (1969). Despite the credits, Cosby said, "Fifty per cent of 'I Was Made To Love Her' was James Jamerson's bass line. No one else played bass like that."

In 1968 Wonder and Cosby wrote an instrumental track and, stuck for words, they asked Smokey Robinson for a lyric. The resulting song, "Tears of a Clown", was included on the Miracles' LP Make It Happen. When Tamla-Motown's UK office issued it as a single two years later, it became a No 1 and then repeated its success in America. Cosby also wrote many of Wonder's album tracks, including "Angie Girl", "Sylvia" and "Angel Baby", and even as late as 1970, when Wonder was writing his own songs, they collaborated on "Never Had a Dream Come True", a hit song also recorded by the Jackson 5 and Leo Sayer.

Cosby wrote and produced the rhythm and blues hit "Do the Boomerang" for Jr Walker and the All Stars in 1965. Other songs included "I Promise To Wait, My Love" (1968) for Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and "No Matter What Sign You Are" (1969) for Diana Ross and the Supremes. He was also part of the team writing the social commentary of "Love Child" (1968) and "I'm Livin' in Shame" (1969), both for Diana Ross and the Supremes, and the anti-Vietnam song "I Should Be Proud" (1970) for Martha Reeves and the Vandellas.

With his sometime partner Mickey Stevenson, Cosby wrote and produced "That's the Way it Goes" for Marvin Gaye (1965) and the classic Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell duet "It Takes Two" (1967). He was amused at Gaye's relationship with his brother-in-law Berry Gordy: he would beg for a favour one day and physically fight him the next. "Berry's attitude to all his artists was always 'I've made you a star, I've done everything for you, so you be quiet and listen to me'," said Cosby, "but Marvin wouldn't take orders from anyone." In 1970 Cosby advised Gaye against continuing with his self-indulgent album What's Going On, not appreciating that Gaye was radically changing soul music.

Cosby thought that Gordy was making a mistake by shifting Tamla-Motown's operations to Los Angeles and he soon felt vindicated:

Motown had to change the whole thing and their costs zoomed up. When they were in Detroit, they were able to do business at a very moderate rate. In LA everything sky-rocketed and it never came down. In Detroit we had our own village and it was a warm feeling. When it became a big corporation, that feeling had to go.

With reluctance, Cosby did move to Los Angeles and, to clear his mind, he would attend bible classes with another Motown producer, Frank Wilson.

Outside Motown, Cosby produced Mirror Image (1974) for Blood, Sweat and Tears and We Meet Again (1978), a solo album for Martha Reeves. He discovered the solo singer Colonel Abrams and recorded him for Polydor.

By the 1980s Cosby had retired from the business and his later years were marred by ill-health. His wife, Patricia, who had worked as a tape librarian at Motown, remarked, "Being married to him was like an elaborate cruise. He carried the baggage and allowed me to enjoy the vacation."

Spencer Leigh