Homer Banks (August 2, 1941 – April 3, 2003) was an African American songwriter, singer and record producer. Although best known by many for his songwriting for Stax Records in the 1960s and 1970s, some of his own releases from the 1960s are considered classics on the Northern Soul scene. Many of the songs he wrote have become contemporary classics.
Banks was born in Memphis, Tennessee, United States, he attended the segregated Booker T Washington high school in Memphis. The school's enthusiastic music teachers helped shape the talents of many leading Stax personnel. At 16, Banks formed the Soul Consolidators gospel group, who performed across the mid-south, using Banks's original material. Directly after high school he did his military service in West-Germany where he won an amateur contest in Germany and toured and sang at military bases.
Back in Memphis after military service (1962-64), Banks started a singing career with the small Genie label where he met Isaac Hayes and David Porter. Soon, Stax founder Estelle Axton hired him to work at the record shop attached to the company's Satellite Studios, where he stayed for three years, also recording for the Minit label. His three consecutive releases "A Lot of Love" (often covered as "Ain't That a Lot of Love") and "60 Minutes of Your Love" (both 1966) and "Hooked By Love " (1967) all found success in England, eventually becoming Northern Soul classics.
Jim Stewart at Stax refused to give Banks a contract as a singer, but eventually Stax did give him a songwriting contract. He began working with co-writer Allen Jones, placing songs with Johnnie Taylor and Sam & Dave, but it was when the legendary gospel group the Staple Singers arrived that he came into his own. Banks wrote their first Stax single, Long Walk To DC and then some of their biggest hits including "If You're Ready (Come Go with Me)".
In 1968, he formed a songwriting trio with Bettye Crutcher and Raymond Jackson, calling themselves We Three. Their first song was "Who's Making Love", which was recorded by Johnnie Taylor and became a # 3 pop hit and # 1 R&B hit, Stax's biggest. By 1969 We Three were Stax's most important songwriters. Banks also wrote, with Jackson and Carl Hampton, "(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want to Be Right", a song first recorded by The Emotions which became a hit when recorded by Luther Ingram, and later recorded by Isaac Hayes and Millie Jackson and many other singers, including Barbara Mandrell, Rod Stewart and Cassandra Wilson.
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| We Three - Banks, Bettye Crusher, Raymond Jackson |
Banks kept writing hits for Stax as the company faltered. The Soul Children's I'll Be The Other Woman was another extraordinarily sensitive adultery ballad, while Shirley Brown's 1974 Woman To Woman was the last hit Stax would enjoy before the company collapsed. After Stax folded, Homer Banks and Carl Hampton signed a publishing deal with A&M Records and moved to California, where they continued to write but with less success.
In 1977, as Banks and Hampton, they recorded the album Passport to Ecstasy for Warner Bros. Records, but disco meant that his immaculately crafted, intense songs were too subtle for a market now simply wanting to boogie. Still, the quality of Banks's Stax songs meant they were continually in demand - Tom Jones, Rod Stewart, the Rolling Stones, Elvis Costello, Taj Mahal, Simply Red, the Band, U-Roy, Cybill Shepherd and Nana Mouskouri all recorded his work.
In the 1980s, Banks formed the Two's Company recording company with Lester Snell, which released albums by J. Blackfoot and Ann Hines. In 1983, Banks, Reginald Jenkins and Chuck Brooks formed Sound Town Records, Inc. and released the top twenty album on J. Blackfoot titled City Slicker. It included the R&B top five single "Taxi" and also debuted on the Billboard Hot 100, which he wrote and produced with Chuck Brooks. Banks and Brooks also produced the Intimate Storm album on the Sound Town Records label, which included four singles that made the Billboard R&B chart. All of these songs were produced for World Production Company formed and owned by Banks, Reginald (Reggie) Jenkins and Chuck Brooks.
Homer Banks died in Memphis on April 3 2003 of cancer, aged 61.
(Edited from Wikipedia & The Guardian)