G. C. Cameron

George Curtis "G.C." Cameron (born 21 September 1945; McCall Creek, Mississippi, United States) is an American soul and R&B vocalist, best known as the lead singer of the Motown supergroup the Spinners on their 1970 hit "It's a Shame" and for his own 1975 hit "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday". Renowned for his versatile, chameleon-like voice, Cameron has been credited with having "six different voices".

Early Life

Cameron was born in the small community of McCall Creek, in Franklin County, Mississippi, one of ten children in a large family. His childhood was spent doing the everyday work of rural Mississippi life, including milking cows and chopping cotton, and one of his earliest and most formative musical experiences was listening to Nashville radio station WLAC, which exposed him to a broad sweep of artists including Big Maybelle, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Muddy Waters, B.B. King and Hank Williams. In 1955 his family relocated to Detroit, where he grew up alongside his cousin, the future Spinners vocalist Philippé Wynne, who was raised in the same household and was a little older than Cameron.
 

Career

After service with the United States Marine Corps, including a tour of duty in Vietnam, Cameron joined the Motown vocal group the Spinners in 1968, becoming one of the group's two lead singers alongside Bobby Smith, replacing Edgar "Chico" Edwards.

Cameron sang both lead parts on the Spinners' breakthrough single "It's a Shame", co-written and produced by Stevie Wonder and released in 1970, which reached number three on the R&B chart and number fourteen on the Billboard Hot 100. When the Spinners left Motown for Atlantic Records in 1972, Cameron remained behind as a Motown solo artist, recommending his cousin Philippé Wynne as his replacement in the group.

As a soloist, he became known for his remarkable ability to evoke other vocalists, echoing Smokey Robinson on "(Don't Wanna) Play Pajama Games", Curtis Mayfield on "No Matter Where", and the Isley Brothers on his duet with Willie Hutch, "Come Get This Thang". He released several singles on Motown's West Coast label, Mowest, and further singles and three albums for the Motown label itself, including a duet with Syreeta, "Let's Make a Deal", and the 1974 album Love Songs & Other Tragedies, which featured the Stevie Wonder-written and produced "If You Don't Love Me" and, on its B-side, the socially conscious "Topics", which Cameron produced and co-wrote.

Although he never matched the commercial success the Spinners went on to achieve at Atlantic, Cameron scored his best-known solo hit with "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday", the theme song of the 1975 film Cooley High, a recording later covered by Boyz II Men. After leaving Motown at the end of the 1970s, Cameron toured as an independent artist and recorded a well-regarded album for Malaco Records in 1983, before his career found renewed momentum in 1989 through recordings for the British labels Ardent, then owned by Paul Mooney, and Motorcity, owned by Ian Levine.

In 2000, after three decades away, he returned to the Spinners to fill in for lead singer John Edwards, who had suffered a stroke, touring with the group through 2002 and appearing with them on a PBS music special performing "It's a Shame"; during this period he also recorded the solo album Shadows, co-produced with Ben Obi of Savannah Street Music. In 2003, Cameron left the Spinners once more, this time to join the Temptations, replacing Barrington "Bo" Henderson as one of the group's lead vocalists; he sang lead on the Temptations' album Reflections, and his rendition of the track "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)" earned a Grammy Award nomination in 2007.

Cameron departed the Temptations in June 2007 to concentrate on his own group, the G.C. Cameron Revue. In late 2008 he appeared on the PBS special Love Train: The Sound of Philadelphia, performing the Spinners' hit "The Rubberband Man", and that same year began working with reggae outfit Dub Nation on the album Rising Force for Change, released in 2012, which featured reggae renditions of "It's a Shame" and "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" alongside new material. He released the solo album Enticed Ecstasy in 2009.
 

Personal Life

Cameron's road from rural Mississippi to Motown stardom and back again has been a defining thread of his life story; after decades spent living across the country, he returned to his home state of Mississippi in his later years, settling near Madison.

In May 2008 he was honoured at a benefit concert for the Hold on to Education Foundation in South Jersey, receiving proclamations from New Jersey State Senator Diane Allen and Willingboro, New Jersey officials including Mayor Jacqueline Jennings and Councilman Eddie Campbell Jr., with tributes performed by the Cherry Hill High School West a cappella group Men of Note and vocalist Marilyn Marshall, in recognition of his contribution to American popular music and his support for youth music education.

Cameron's family ties to Motown ran deep throughout his career, most notably through his cousin and eventual Spinners successor, Philippé Wynne, and he is remembered by fellow musicians and soul historians alike as one of the era's most technically gifted and versatile vocalists, whose brief but pivotal tenure helped launch the Spinners toward their later fame.