I spent all day yesterday with the Yancey's. Just sitting around their kitchen table absorbing all the great stories they had to share. It was my first time meeting Dilla's father, Beverly Dewitt Yancey, he was probably the single most influential person in Dilla's musical development. Both he and Ma Dukes had numerous musical groups over the years from their gospel group Positive Force, to their after church group they liked to call the Attitude Adjustment which included a 10 year old Dilla playing snare drum, to their Jazz and Gospel group The Larks, which they just sang with not two years ago. But Mr. Yancey's first group was a Doo Wop group called The Ivies. They were four long time friends from Detroit who sang 4 part harmony, Dewitt being the Tenor. They played together for 25 years and were the halftime group for the Harlem Globetrotters for many years. The Ivies only recorded two songs in 1958 in New York City at the Ed Sullivan Studio for Ivy Records. They are long out of print but you can find a CD Doo Wop compilation called The Best of Ivy and Hanover Records on Amazon and the Ivies are on track 11 Sunshine and track 12 Come On. My Yancey played the CD for me yesterday and his face just lit up as we all sat and listened.
When I came back to my hotel room I somehow found a copy of the song online and posted it on Twitter and Facebook. Then my friend Vlada Stojanovic from the Global Grooves Collective and Laidback Radio in Brussels contacted me and asked if I could send him the track so he could feature it on his radio show. I was already so excited to get back to the Yancey's today and tell Dewitt the news, and then this morning I found a copy of the original 45 The Ivies recorded all those years ago at Ed Sullivan Studios and now I can't wait to get there and give it to him.
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