Pat Lewis - One More Chance

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PAT LEWIS died last week. I recorded 140 songs with her. This is out tribute to her memory - a wonderful version of the song which Willie Tee wrote for Margie Joseph. IN LOVING MEMORY OF PAT “PATSY” LEWIS - 1947 - 2024
I have written many obituaries for many artists, but nothing was ever as hard and painful as this was. I’ve been up half the night trying to work out what to say. It is five months away from the fiftieth anniversary of my first song and production. During those fifty years, I have worked with many hundreds and hundreds of artists. Pat Lewis recorded far far more songs with me than any other artist throughout those fifty years. Many other singers, like Evelyn Thomas, Barbara Pennington, and Sidney Barnes, became dear close personal friends, but none so close to me as Pat Lewis. She used to encourage and praise me for how quickly I could put a melody and lyrics together on the spot. Cast your mind back to thirty five years ago. It was February 1989, an ice cold winter in Detroit. The snow was piled up high on the streets, six foot high. As soon as you walked out of the car, the bitter cold hit you in the face, like a hard slap. I went to Detroit to hold our Motown Reunion, my grandiose scheme to record new material on the former Motown artists, which grew and grew, until we recorded 108 different artists on 857 songs between 1986 and 1992. I had pulled the Motown backing girls back together, bringing in Louvain Demps from Atlanta to reunite with Jackie Hicks and Marlene Barrow. On March 14th 1989, we had our huge launch outside the Hitsville USA building, with the help and co-operation of Berry Gordy’s sister Esther Edwards. The Andantes all turned up with Pat Lewis. “Pat is our lead singer now” Jackie proudly proclaimed, And my close friendship began with Pat, who instantly bonded with me, from that day right up to last week, when we chatted for half an hour. Her skills at arranging backing vocals was second to none. She sang on about 800 of those 857 Motorcity recordings. She worked with the Andantes, and then even more with her two amazing friends, Sandra Feva (aka Sandra Richardson) and Belita Woods. She worked tirelessly night and day for me and Rick Gianatos, my co-producer. Not only super talented but the kindest, warmest, loveliest lady I ever know in my life. The Godmother of Detroit. She recorded duets for me, with Edwin Starr and with Ronnie McNeir.
She stayed in my house at least twenty or thirty different times, sometimes for three months at a time. She used to go out to play Bingo with my Polish housekeeper Bozena. When we made our massive documentary “THE STRANGE WORLD OF NORTHERN SOUL”, I hired a new assistant, a young guy called Adi Denney. I sent him to Detroit with two video cameras to stay at Pat’s house. Every day she drove him all over the city, to film every artist from The Dynamics, to Carl Carlton, all done out of the goodness of her heart. Then she flew to London to stay with me and almost single handedly put the backing vocals onto 132 artist performances for our musical timeless testament to the history of the Northern Soul scene. The one artist we most needed to find was Tobi Legend. Pat heard five seconds of the song and said “That’s Tobi Lark”. She immediately phoned Tobi and we played the record over the phone. The scream down the phone drowned out the song. Pat was a sensational cook. She insisted that we all taste her smothered chicken. We went out to the supermarket, bought a portable barbecue and charcoal. I swear that was the best chicken of all time. In November 1998 we had the Blackpool Mecca Reunion, run by me and Neil Rushton. Pat found Rose Battiste for us, but Rose would only come if Pat flew over with her, so she did, and recorded lots of new songs in my studio, working closely with Leee John of Imagination fame. Then in 2016 when I did my first Skegness Weekender, my one condition for DJing was that Russ brought over Pat Lewis to appear. Sidney Barnes came to stay with me three months ago at the end of June, and we spent half an hour on a video call with Pat and him chatting over old times. I know she loved Hitsville Chalky as much as she loved me. Pat declared publicly that for 35 years, I had always found the money to pay her, and that she had never in her life, ever had a problem with me. That is the kind of friendship that she bestowed upon me, loyal, steadfast, kind, and sincere, always willing to help and defend anybody who needed it. But the greatest testament to her friendship was in 2014, when I had a terrible stroke which left me disabled. She flew into England, stayed with Chalky, just so that she could come and visit me in hospital. Life gives us very very few real true friends. I lost my Mother, I lost Barbara Pennington, I lost Les Cokell, I lost Evelyn Thomas. And now the unthinkable has happened. I have lost Pat Lewis.
My world will never be the same again.