Bobby Patterson (born March 13, 1944) – This Whole Funky World Is A Ghetto (1972)
This socially conscious anthem was the super funky closing cut to the unsung singer/songwriter's only full-length album, released on Paula Records.
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Bobby Patterson is an unsung singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, arranger, and producer. He led Bobby Patterson and the Mustangs and released many singles for Dallas-based Jetstar Records in the 1960s and one full-length album of his own in 1972 before shifting to writing and producing for other artists.
Born in East Dallas, Texas, Patterson learned to play guitar and drums when he was ten years old. As a teenager he formed a group called the Royal Rockers, and they entered and won several talent contests around Dallas. He attended the University of Texas at Arlington, and became friends with classmate John H. Abdnor Jr. whose father owned local record label Abnak Records.
After Patterson recorded the rockin’ single “You Just Got To Understand” for Abnak in 1962, John H. Abdnor Sr. set up a soul division, Jetstar Records.
Patterson spent the next six years releasing singles on Jetstar, both under his own name and later, as leader of Bobby Patterson and the Mustangs. In 1968, he and the Mustangs performed their horn-laden jam “Broadway Ain’t Funky No More” on a Dallas TV show run by longtime KVIL DJ Ron Chapman.
Two of the singles Patterson released on Jetstar in 1969 before Abnak Records shut down later that year were the funky jam “T.C.B. or T.Y.A.” (which hit #43 on the Cashbox R&B charts) and the super funky “My Thing Is Your Thing (Come Get It),” both of which he wrote and produced.
Once Abnak had folded, Patterson hooked up with Shreveport, Louisiana-based Jewel Records and began writing and producing for other artists, including Ted Taylor and Margie Joseph.
He also kept releasing his own records, and in 1972 his only full-length album It’s Just A Matter Of Time came out on the Jewel subsidiary Paula Records. It included several of his previous singles on Paula like the two-timing tale “Right On, Jody.” The stellar love jam “I Get My Groove From You” was later released as a single in 1973. The album’s phenomenal closing cut “This Whole Funky World Is A Ghetto” was one of a pair of socially conscious songs on the LP, both written solely by Patterson. “Reach out, take somebody’s hand. Let’s take a vow to clean up our land!”
The other was the powerful peace anthem “Recipe For Peace,” with lyrics that spelled out exactly how our world could cook up a brighter future.
One of the last records Patterson released under his own name during the seventies was the stellar funky jam “If Love Can’t Do It (It Can’t Be Done” (1973) which he produced and arranged, and co-wrote with his songwriting partner Jerry Strickland. Patterson spent the rest of the decade working behind the scenes as a writer, producer, and record promoter. In a 2019 interview, he explained:
“I had always planned to learn all I could about the business, so I learned the business side and then I came back and made more records, but this time on my own record label. I met Michael Jackson when he was sixteen years old and Whitney Houston and Luther Vandross. We used to have conventions three times a year and everybody came. I partied with Millie Jackson, Latimore, Johnny “Guitar” Watson and many more. Back then we really got to know people. I’m glad I worked on the performing end and the business end. That’s how I got to know these people on a personal level over the years.”
Happy 80th Birthday to the great Bobby Patterson.
Further info:
“Bobby Patterson's 'Got More Soul,' Heart And Spirit,” interview by Scott Simon, Weekend Edition, WBUR / NPR, July 26, 2014.
“Bobby Patterson Celebrates His 75th Birthday!,” interview by Alan Mercer, Profile, March 11, 2019.
#soul #funk #JetstarRecords #BobbyPatterson