Elder Prentiss Anderson does not want his past to interfere with his present life at Bethesda Christian Center, so on Sundays, he preaches without a hint of how he used to make a living - until he starts to sing.
Mr. Anderson was one of the singers who performed for musical pioneer Berry Gordy at Motown Records in Detroit. Mr. Anderson, along with Lee Henry Moore and another singer, made up the trio Lee and the Leopards.
In 1961, on the Gordy label, Lee and the Leopards released “Come Into My Palace,” a tune Mr. Anderson helped write and produce. The song became a Top 10 hit, and one of the first hits for Motown Records, Mr. Anderson said.
“What people didn t know is that with Motown, you didn t have to be the best singer because there were a lot of good singers out there,” Mr. Anderson said. “But if you could write as well as sing, that was it, because writing hit songs was where the money was.”
Mr. Anderson had another goal that was more compelling than singing: college. He said he took his royalty checks for “Come Into My Palace” and other songs he wrote and put it toward his education at the University of Toledo.
“Who knew things would turn out the way they did?” Mr. Anderson said. “At that time, there wasn t really a future in entertainment, and if you had anything going on, you wanted to be in college. So I started going to school to get my business degree.”
In 1969, he earned his bachelor s degree and went on to work for the Concentrated Employment Program. He moved to Los Angeles later and worked for Gwendolyn Gordy Fuqua s music publishing business while he studied at St. Stephen s Bible College to enter the clergy.
“It s something I always knew I wanted to do,” Mr. Anderson said. “I grew up in Port Lawrence Homes, so you had to be tough back in those days, but [becoming a minister] was something that always interested me.”
He sang backup for Eddie Kendricks when the Temptations legend first left the group to start a solo career.
Mr. Anderson married and moved to his wife s hometown of Chattanooga, Tenn., where he taught vocational studies at Howard High School. His famous Motown friends, such as Mr. Kendricks and Fred Cash from the Impressions, would always drop by to visit him, drawing the attention of colleagues and students.
One visit by Dennis Edwards, of the Temptations, stirred one of the few newspaper articles written about his place in Motown history.
Locally, he helped write gospel songs for the Grammy-winning Rance Allen Group.
Mr. Anderson and his wife, Dorothy, moved back to Toledo in 1998 and quietly began preaching here. He keeps his hand in music as a tour manager for national recording artist Darryl “Lil D” Wheeler, who performed in Toledo last summer.
“He s been here for about four years, and he s a wonderful preacher,” said Gail Green, a worker at Bethesda Christian who worked with Mr. Anderson as a jobs counselor at Connecting Point, Inc. “We consider him our historian because he has a wealth of information about the people here. He s a wonderful singer, but I guess everyone knows that already.”
Mr. Anderson s briefcase is an impressive unkempt treasure trove of pictures, articles, old contracts, and music of Motown s heyday, when the music made by African-American performers could not be ignored by the masses.
Pictures he took at the 1998 Detroit funeral of Ms. Fuqua, Mr. Gordy s sister, shows a virtual who s who of Motown giants from Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder to Mr. Gordy himself.
“A lot of the singers all knew each other because we all hung around Motown because we knew Berry would pay $25 for backup singers,” Mr. Anderson said. “Hey, $25 was a lot of money in those days.”
He said he is proud of his small place in musical history and the endless friendships he has made, but he also enjoys his new life: preaching to his congregations in Toledo.
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