Bobby Brooks Junior Fashions Mid 1960s
Who is Bobby Brooks Wilson?
He is a talented entertainer who received high critical acclamation for his recreation of the legendary JackieWilson – a stage persona he undertook long before learning that he was the rightful heir to the legacy.
Information technology wasn't until long after he had begun performing in his ain right that Bobby realized the truthful source of his musical legacy –the talent flowed naturally because he was really the son of Jackie Wilson.
Although he was born in New York State, as an babe Bobby somehow wound up in the foster system of South Carolina where he was given the name of Bobby Brooks by the state. Growing upward in Columbia, Due south Carolina, Bobby survived a babyhood that seems to accept come up straight from a Dickensian nightmare. Young Bobby was stricken with a horrific array of babyhood diseases ranging from rickets to bronchitis which resulted in his spending the years between age 3 and six either in a body cast from his waist to his feet or wearing weighted shoes. The continuing trauma left Bobby unable to enjoy life like other children of his age. Thus he found his only solace in listening to music.
Adding to his fated childhood was his accidental discovery of his birth certificate which showed that the woman he called Mom was not his nativity mother. Bobby'southward foster mother did not reveal the underground of his begetter's identity nor did immature Bobby inquire. She had raised 400 foster children through the South Carolina arrangement.
Near miraculously one day when Bobby was sixteen, the bronchitis, which had reappeared when he was nine, mysteriously disappeared. Elated to have establish new life as a regular teenager, Bobby joined Project Upward Bound and it was through that organization that he somewhen met his birth mother and his half‐sisters.
Bobby chose an easy and time‐honored way out of his troubled life – meeting and marrying a young woman who would shortly bear their son, Bobby Jr. But the wedlock too was rocky.
Trying to pull his life together, Bobby had completed two years of study at the Midlands Technical College in Columbia and was in his first semester at the University of Southward Carolina in 1979 majoring in electrical engineering science, when he made the decision to drop out and join the Navy.
For the next 10 years of his life, Bobby proudly served his land in the Navy, rising to the rank of Due east‐6as a WT1, Weapons Tech 1st Grade, before his honorable belch.
Simply medical ailments again raised their specter, and this fourth dimension it was a kidney stone problem that temporarily sidetracked Bobby.
Shortly afterward his separation from the Navy in 1989 and with $20,000 in hand, Bobby made a spur of the moment decision that would change his life forever. He chose to participate in a talent show by performing "Just Once," the James Ingram ballad. That led to further public performances at local karaoke bars. Information technology was afterward one particularly impressive performance of the Motown classic "My Daughter" that Peter Hernandez, atomic number 82 vocalizer for the doo wop group Peter and the Love Notes, approached Bobby and invited him to sing with the Hernandez family group.Hernandez's son, the then‐six year quondam Peter Jr., was part of the evidence doing an Elvis imitation. He would shortly proceed to notice fame in his ain correct as Bruno Mars.
Bobby accepted the invitation and became a back‐upward singer for the grouping playing at diverse venues in Hawaii such as the Sheraton Waikiki. Bruno's uncle coached him in song impersonations, but balked when information technology came to Bobby's including Jackie Wilson in his repertoire despite taking detect of Bobby's pompadour, natural mannerisms and vocal range. The clues were always in that location – information technology only took someone else to find them.
And that person was Paul Revere of the 1960s vocal group Paul Revere and the Raiders, who came to run across a show in Hawaii to cheque out Bruno Mars. After watching the entire performance one night in 1994,Bobby recalls that Revere grabbed him afterwards and asked him to "Exercise a Jackie Wilson medley." Insisting he was a performer and not an impersonator, Bobby declined. But Revere persisted and fifty-fifty showed Bobby photos of a young Jackie Wilson every bit a member of the iconic Baton Ward's Dominos song group.
Revere excitedly shared his discovery of Bobby with Jon Stuart, creator of the Las Vegas‐based Legends in Concert tribute shows. They hired Bobby to perform, but at start not every bit an impressionist of Jackie Wilson. That was the offset of Bobby's long professional relationship with Legends in Concert that continues to this day.
Meanwhile, Bobby's personal life was also undergoing some equally exciting changes. Bobby had long ago confronted his nativity mother Willie Mae Benton in his quest to learn the identity of his father. Unfortunately Benton, who had once been a political party girl, was now an aging alcoholic with three other children. Repeatedly, she told Bobby she was unsure of who might take been his begetter. Bobby recalls that matters about came to a caput once when he sent her a photograph of himself as Jackie Wilson and she tore information technology upwardly. "Why would you send me a photograph of him?" she later asked Bobby. "But it isn't Jackie Wilson, information technology is me," replied Bobby. She angrily retorted "Don't ever send me any pictures of Jackie Wilson."
Bobby remembers that when he told her about the birth of his oldest son she was drunk and asked him for money. Finally, he once again confronted her and asked about her relationship with Jackie Wilson. "Did you know him?" asked Bobby. This fourth dimension his female parent admitted that she had "hung out" with him. Bobby was encouraged and asked "Could he exist my father?" "I don't know" was her response.Willie Mae Benton was 14 back when she "hung out" with Jackie Wilson, only she already looked as if she was 25. However information technology was not until Bobby met the legendary songwriter Billy Raquel Davis, co‐writer with Berry Gordy, Jr. of Jackie Wilson's classic song hits, that he learned the truth. How that coming together came nigh makes for still another fascinating chapter in the Bobby Brooks Wilson saga.
Bobby was at Bally's in Atlantic City portraying Jackie Wilson during the three‐week run of a Legends In Concert bear witness when one evening the Iv Tops, the iconic Motown song group, decided to bank check out Bobby and the Legends show. Later on, they asked to run across Bobby in the hotel's VIP room. Lawrence Payton, one of the group's members, immediately pointed to the uncanny similarities between Bobby and Jackie Wilson and said he was sure that Bobby had inherited his ability to channel Jackie Wilson naturally. To prove his indicate, Payton said Bobby fifty-fifty had Jackie's infectious laugh. Not merely that, but Payton told Bobby they both sang in the aforementioned register and fifty-fifty talked alike.
Payton'south conclusion was clear. Either Bobby was family unit or a clone.
Levi Stubbs, another member of the 4 Tops and a cousin of Jackie Wilson, was convinced that Bobby and Jackie were "family." Information technology was Payton and Stubbs who then told Billy Davis to check out Bobby.
2 weeks afterward, Davis came to see and hear Bobby and judge for himself. When he talked to Bobby, Davis asked about his family. Bobby told him of his South Carolina foster habitation and also shared his birth mother'due south name. Davis was startled when he heard it and said he knew Bobby's mother. Almost immediately, Davis told Bobby what the Iv Tops had suspected, Jackie Wilson was Bobby's male parent. Pure and simple, Bobby just could not have so many of Jackie's traits were he not related to him.
Past 2003 Bobby'due south star was already beginning to ascension as he scored a major success in the production of Serendipity at the Orleans Casino. That bear witness marked the beginning of the transition of Bobby from impersonator to all‐around entertainer. Every bit Bobby recalls, "The president of the casino offered me a four yr contract for that show, just the producers shot it downwards."
Exactly four years later in 2007, Al Abrams. Motown's founding publicist, was putting together his plans for Memories of Motown, a musical tribute that would honor the upcoming 50th ceremony of Motown Records in 2009. The groundbreaking infotainment would showcase several original iconic Motown artists along with a mix of summit‐notch tribute artists. What would set it apart from run‐of‐the‐mill tribute shows would be an on‐stage historical narrative by Abrams ‐‐ who was the starting time employee hired by Motown founder Berry Gordy, Jr. in May 1959, and who had often been in the company of Jackie Wilson during those early years.
Abrams' cousin just happened to be Bea Fogelman, founder and manager of the Las Vegas‐based Entertainment Network, the talent agency that promoted the careers of tribute artists. Through her efforts, Abrams hooked up with the award‐winning Berlin‐based show producer Bernhard Kurz of Stars in Concert, so celebrating its tenth anniversary.
As shortly as Abrams and Kurz arrived in Las Vegas in 2008 to hold auditions for their show, Bea Fogelman quickly stepped into the picture. She told Abrams, Kurz and the show's artistic director Paul Langley that there was no better artist to portray Wilson than Bobby. At this bespeak, the stories about Bobby beingness Wilson's son were withal the subject of rampant speculation.
Bea Fogelman was correct. Bobby was indeed a showstopper during the musical'due south month‐long run at the Estrel Festival Heart in Berlin January 7 through February 1, 2009. Bobby shared the stage with Martha Reeves and Sylvester Potts and the Contours, along with Abrams and his co‐writer, legendary Motown A&R man William "Mickey" Stevenson, as the show received worldwide acclaim for beingness the only musical show produced anywhere in the world to honor Motown'southward 50th altogether. The show was such a global hit that Universal issued a special Memories of Motown CD.
I thing was obvious to those in the cast like Abrams and Stevenson who had known and worked with Jackie Wilson – Bobby was clearly his son – and more than than in name only.
Manifestly the fans knew it before the rest of the world. Ane night walking through the Estrel hotel lobby after a performance, a middle‐aged German fan rushed up to Bobby and exclaimed, "Oh My God! I thought yous were dead."
Today, although Bobby has found new audiences to entertain every bit a regular headliner on cruise ships and as an impressionist with Little Richard, Sam Cooke and Stevie Wonder in his repertoire, he has even so remained on the threshold of major success.
Thanks to the innate ability of veteran record producer Tony Mantor of Nashville'due south Plateau Music to recognize and nurture a star in the making, Bobby Brooks Wilson'southward day has finally arrived. Musical history is one time again going to be fabricated – and rewritten.
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