Marv Johnson

Marv Johnson recorded for Tamla, so technically he may have been the first Motown artist to make the charts, but Motown had no distribution mechanism back then, so they licensed his records to United Artists. There are copies of his recordings on the Tamla label extant, but he’s never appeared on any Motown anthologies, so his status as a Motown artist has never really been established.

I have all 4 of his top 40 hits, and he had another 5 that didn’t make the top 40, and he had them all between 1959 and 1961.

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Marv Johnson:

• Come To Me – Marv kicks off his short career with a song very much in the style that was becoming popular right about then, promoted by the likes of Jackie Wilson, Major Lance, Gene Chandler, et al. From the spring of 1959.
• You’ve Got What It Takes – This has to be one of the strangest songs ever to hit the top 40. You’re ugly, he says, more or less, you have bad taste, you don’t earn much, your clothes are unflattering, you don’t have much going for you, but hey, you’re everything to me and I love you. What seems to be an attack on the superficial ends up defeating its very premise.. A hit in the winter of 1960, and revived by The Dave Clark Five in 1967, who beat the original by 3 chart points.
• (You’ve Got To) Move Two Mountains – This is a light-hearted and uptempo song about pain and anger. “My best was not enough for you” says the singer, getting his own back. Sure I’ll take you back, but man, you’re gonna pay. From the fall of 1960.
• I Love The Way You Love – Music to shag by (right darlin’?). From the spring of 1960.