The Broadways “Are You Telling Me Goodbye” (MGM 13486-B, 1966)
I‘m a sucker for an elegant break-up ballad. Better yet if the singer has a pensive tone to their voice that heightens the melodrama. It seems that Billy Brown, later of The Moments and Ray, Goodman & Brown decidedly had that voice that lifted him above the pack and would lead him to fame.
Here we find him making a splendid double-sided debut. Both sides of the debut for his first group The Broadways deserve multiple listens, but I give the slight edge to the echo and piano driven B-side.
Worth of note is the composer, Drake Hollon, who would go on to write Florence Ballard’s debut A-side 2 years later. I’ve said previously that it would have been rather intriguing to see the former Supreme decidedly move into a New York Soul vein with a cover of either side of this single. As produced, they’re sparkling examples of the transition period Soul Music was in as the Mid 1960’s gave way to the late 1960’s and eventually the 1970’s.
