Ryder, Mitch

Mitch Ryder

Singer, songwriter

A “Baaad Dude” on Detroit R & B Scene

Stardom With Detroit Wheels

Hard Times

Selected discography

Sources

Rolling Stone once called Mitch Ryder the Godfather of Motor City Rock and Roll; other tastemakers dubbed him the King of White Soul and the Master of Blue-Eyed Rhythm and Blues. In 1965, several newspapers quoted Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones roaring, “Mitch has got it!” But, over the years, what he had was nearly destroyed by overwork, mismanagement, and substance abuse. Although decades later he remains a rock legend, Ryder is no longer as recognized as he once was. Nonetheless, he continues to perform, often to rave reviews, write critically acclaimed songs, and thrill his cult audience.

Ryder was born William Levise, Jr., on February 26, 1945, in Detroit, Michigan. As a child, he lived in the suburbs of Detroit, but as he was prone to discipline problems, summers saw him shipped off to live in the city with his grandmother. Ryder told Goldmine’s Ken Settle of his early exposure to music there, recollecting, “I really started hearing and buying records. I think the first big one for me was ‘A Fool in Love’ by Tina Turner.” His interest in music grew, and he wrote the school song for his junior high and later worked with a high school band called Tempest. But it wasn’t until he earned a Number One rating at a county solo/ensemble festival for his rendition of “Danny Boy” that young Billy Levise’s confidence really soared.

A “Baaad Dude” on Detroit R & B Scene

In 1962, a 17-year-old Levise emerged on the burgeoning Detroit rhythm and blues scene. The Village, considered one of the soul clubs, featured music that, local lore has it, made the walls bulge and the streets quake. Soul singer and Village star attraction Nathaniel Mayer remembered Levise to Settle as “a baaad dude,” elaborating, “It was amazin’ because, you know, usually when guys sing with all that soul, first thing you think it’s a black dude, then you look up and there’s a white dude doin’ it. So all of us was shocked.” Levise cut “That’s the Way It’s Gonna Be”/“Fool for You,” an R & B single on Reverend James Hendrix’s gospel Carrie label, and shortly thereafter began fronting a band known as the Peps. The constant rotation of musicians in that outfit, however, began to drive him crazy—often, no one showed up at all.

One night in early 1964, while Levise was hanging around at the Village waiting for his musicians to arrive, he met another group. It was resolved that they would jam together sometime or have a few beers, but the actual result was Billy Lee and the Rivieras. By that summer, this new band found they’d developed a rather large and fanatical following. Dave Prince, disc jockey at Detroit’s WXYZ, heard of the band and began

For the Record…

Born William Levise, Jr., February 26, 1945, in Detroit, MI; married twice.

Became professional singer, c. 1962; recorded “That’s the Way It’s Gonna Be”/“Fool for You,” Carrie, c. 1963; singer with the Peps, 1963-1964; singer with Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels (originally Billy Lee and the Rivieras), 1964-1966; signed with New Voice label, 1964; released “Jenny Take a Ride,” 1965; became solo performer, 1967; released The Detroit-Memphis Experiment, Dot, 1969; singer with Detroit, 1971-1972; singer with Knock Down, Drag Out Band, early 1970s; worked as laborer, Denver, 1972-1977; resumed performing/recording career, 1978.

Addresses: Agent —Entertainment Services International, 6400 Pleasant Park Dr., Chanhassen, MN 55317.

booking them to open for Motown acts at the renowned Walled Lake Casino, about 40 miles northwest of Detroit.

After just a few shows, Billy Lee and the Rivieras were headlining, billed above top Motown performers. Prince introduced their music to Bob Crewe, a New York City-based independent record producer and head of his own label—New Voice Records—and management firm. Crewe, who’d had major success with Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, was eager to see the band after listening to a tape Prince had recorded. Prince arranged for Crewe to see Billy Lee and the Rivieras at a large venue where they were third on the bill of a Dave Clark Five concert. Although the former Levise and company were only scheduled to play a few songs, the frenzied audience kept them onstage for nearly an hour and a half. Crewe was shocked and sold, insisting that the band be in New York City within the week.

As another band had already made a name for themselves as the Rivieras, the Lee ensemble became the Detroit Wheels, and Billy Lee became Mitch Ryder, a moniker lifted from the pages of a 1965 Manhattan phone book; the pairing of “Ryder,” a play on “rider,” and “wheels” seemed apt.

Stardom With Detroit Wheels

Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels didn’t hit big with their new name for nearly a year, but when they did, in December of 1965, they hit hard. When the band combined Chuck Willis’s slow burner “C.C. Rider” with the driving rhythm of Little Richard’s “Jenny, Jenny” to form “Jenny Take a Ride,” the music world took notice.

For the next two years the hits and the fans kept coming. Songs like “Little Latin Lupe Lu,” “Break Out,” “Takin’ All I Can Get,” “Devil With a Blue Dress On/Good Golly Miss Molly,” “Sock It to Me, Baby,” and “Too Many Fish in the Sea” made indelible marks not only on the rock and pop charts, but on the R & B charts as well. The Wheels’ showing on the R & B charts was of particular significance as they were the only white group to come out of Motown at that time; whereas black Motown acts were crossing over to the white pop market, Ryder and his cohorts were crossing from the pop/rock market into R & B, testimony to their reverence for the black art form and the black community’s respect for the band.

The “Devil/Molly” cut, from their second LP, Breakout...!!!, was just one example of Ryder’s interpretive genius. Shorty Long’s obscure Motown release “Devil With a Blue Dress On,” paired with Richard’s legendary 1958 screamer “Good Golly Miss Molly,” was such hyperkinetic, frenetic fun that as late as 1988, Rolling Stone listed it among its 100 best singles of the previous 25 years. Such amalgamations helped create near-hysteria during Wheels concerts and ultimately became one of their trademarks. The medleys ended up on albums lafgely because the band had been rushed into recording; they hadn’t had time to learn anything new and were thus forced to cull the best pieces from their club act.

During the band’s second year at the top, a number of people, including Bob Crewe, began slowly working on Ryder to become a solo act, with Las Vegas as their goal; Vegas seemed to be where the big money was. (This was before the tremendous stadium shows that would evetually become commonplace). In May of 1967 Ryder finally gave in and left the Detroit Wheels to don the $2,000 tuxedo of the Las Vegas cabaret singer. “I just wanted to make some big, brassy music,” Ryder told Goldmine’s Settle. On the whole, record buyers found Mitch Ryder singing “You Are My Sunshine” and “Personality/Chantilly Lace” on his What Now My Love? album somewhat ridiculous. Finally, Ryder split with Crewe and fled the glitzy folly.

In 1969 he released The Detroit-Memphis Experiment, the generally agreed on brilliance of which restored his credibility in the wake of the Vegas material he’d produced with Crewe. But although it was critically acclaimed, Experiment sold poorly. In 1971 Ryder formed a seven-man hard rock band that reunited him with Wheels drummer John Badanjek. This outfit was called simply Detroit, as was their only album. According to Settle, “Ryder’s personal life was becoming increasingly tortuous, and business dealings were in massive disarray after Crewe purportedly stuck Ryder with horrendous expenses before their partnership dissolved, [but the Detroit album] captured the soulful spirit and metallic drive that was the epitome of urban rock.”

Hard Times

By then, Ryder desperately needed to get out of rock. “After I’d quit Detroit,” he admitted to Settle, “I really wanted a rest, although I couldn’t afford one. I didn’t have any money saved up; I wasn’t making enough to save any.” He performed with a group called the Knock Down, Drag Out Party Band—really a just-for-fun project—that allowed him to keep his hand in the business. But soon, even that became too much, and in 1972, Ryder moved to Denver, and, it seemed, out of music altogether. He reasoned to Settle: “Probably by the time I moved out there I had waited way too long to get off the stage and take a break.... I knew I had to be off the stage, but couldn’t afford not to.... And having to need that money pushed me into a situation where, mentally, I shouldn’t have even been onstage. Mentally, it was bad for me and precipitated a whole series of events which led me to Colorado.” In time, he was frightened to perform in public. A reliance on tranquilizers followed. “Little things would upset me,” Ryder revealed in the Washington Times. “When I couldn’t control situations, I would refuse to deal with them and would do that by sedating myself.”

His sojourn in Denver was certainly a healing period, but Ryder did not swear off drugs and alcohol until 1988. He did not leave music behind during his five years out west, as many have suggested; while working as a laborer by day, he wrote songs at night, eventually rehearsing with new musician friends he’d made. Very slowly, Ryder began to re-enter the music business.

“Finally,” Goldmine contributor Settle reported, “with a bold, renewed musical vision, Ryder reclaimed his Detroit turf in 1977,” and in 1978, on his own Seeds & Stems label, he released the aptly titled How I Spent My Vacation. “The pain, desire, and deception that Ryder had weathered in his life and career are achingly apparent,” Settle observed. He went on to echo many critics—and countless fans—in his assessment of this record and Ryder’s later work: “The fortunate few who heard this LP were treated to a modern music classic. The album is full of twisted images of life’s gamblers and losers, infused with the realization that in the end they become one and the same. One cannot deny the icy chill in Ryder’s vocals. It is the voice of a man who had lost everything except the power to reclaim. Time and time again on Ryder’s subsequent recordings, especially Naked But Not Dead and a handful of European releases, the artist proves that he still possesses a potent and relevant voice in the contemporary mainstream. His is an artistry that is unafraid, and quite eager to take commercial chances and [make] artistic advances.”

Although Ryder remains a rock hero and cult favorite—actress Winona Ryder borrowed his borrowed surname—and continues to earn critical praise and wield influence among younger artists—particularly heartland rocker John Mellencamp, who produced Ryder’s Never Kick a Sleeping Dog —he has yet to recapture the glory he enjoyed as frontman for the Detroit Wheels. He continues to write and tour and has begun work on an autobiography that is being co-written by star music scribe David Marsh. When Settle asked what the most nagging misconception about him is, Ryder replied, “I don’t think they have any misconceptions about what I am in Europe. In America, I feel that the general public has been denied my presence on a mass level for so long that they don’t know me here. So there’s really no room for misconceptions. Other than the general public thinking that I may have died. That could be a misconception.”

Selected discography

With Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels

Take a Ride, New Voice, 1966.

Breakout... !!!, New Voice, 1966.

Sock It to Me, New Voice, 1967.

Greatest Hits, Roulette, 1987.

Rev Up: The Best of Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, Rhino, 1989.

With Detroit

Detroit, Paramount, 1971, reissued, 1987.

Solo albums

All Mitch Ryder Hits, New Voice, 1967.

All the Heavy Hits, Crewe, 1967.

What Now My Love?, Dyno Voice, 1967.

Mitch Ryder Sings the Hits, New Voice, 1968.

The Detroit-Memphis Experiment, Dot, 1969.

How I Spent My Vacation, Seeds & Stems, 1978.

Naked But Not Dead, Seeds & Stems, 1980.

Look Ma, No Wheels, Quality, 1981.

Never Kick a Sleeping Dog, Riva, 1983.

Contributor

Michigan Rocks, Seeds & Stems, 1977.

Was (Not Was), Born to Laugh at Tornadoes, Geffen, 1983.

Sources

Books

Rees, Dafydd, and Luke Crampton, Rock Movers & Shakers, ABC/CLIO, 1991.

Periodicals

Ann Arbor News (Ml), January 9, 1989.

Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock), January 11, 1989.

Boston Globe, July 8, 1988.

Buffalo News (NY), June 23, 1988.

Cape Cod Times (Hyannis, MA), July 14, 1988.

Detroit Free Press, January 28, 1991; May 15, 1991; May 18, 1991; May 9, 1993.

Goldmine, May 20, 1988.

Rolling Stone, September 8, 1988; February 9, 1989.

Washington Times, July 19, 1988.

—Joanna Rubiner