Sneak of the Week: J.J. Barnes, “Ain’t It the Truth”

Was sounding too much like Marvin Gaye this ‘60s soul slinger’s downfall?

J.J. Barnes is the great lost soul man of the ‘60s, an artist who either slipped through the fingers of Motown or was nearly smothered by them, depending on how you look at it. And his 1966 banger “(Tell Me) Ain’t It the Truth” is an alternate-universe classic that wasn’t even released until more than three decades after it was recorded.

Barnes was a Detroit singer/songwriter who was a member of The Holidays early on, alongside a pre-fame Edwin Starr. On his own, Barnes cut a great string of singles for small local labels throughout the first half of the ‘60s. One of these, Ric-Tic, was bought up by Motown, along with the little imprint’s roster. As a writer, Barnes provided Motown with tunes for The Fantastic Four, The Marvelettes, and more. But the label never released anything by Barnes as a singer, despite his sharp songwriting acumen and his powerhouse vocal style.

The scuttlebutt is that Motown perceived Barnes as sounding too much like Marvin Gaye, in surely the only circumstance in music history where that could be considered a liability. Depending on who you believe, it was either the upper echelon at the label or Gaye himself who aired this concern, with either the former worrying about oversaturating the market or the latter being concerned with competition for his stylistic turf.

Both versions of the story could be completely apocryphal and are, in either case, fairly ridiculous. There are some similarities between Barnes and Gaye, but not enough to really raise an eyebrow. And let’s get real—Marvin Gaye’s progress was certainly never in any danger of being slowed down by Barnes or anybody else. Nevertheless, Motown simply sat on Barnes’ 1966 recording of “Ain’t It the Truth,” just as they did with anything else he cut for them.

Barnes wrote the tune with two Motown heavyweights: Sylvia Moy, best known for co-writing the Stevie Wonder classics

“Uptight (Everything’s Alright),” “My Cherie Amour,” and “I Was Made to Love Her,” and Richard Morris, author of gobs of great tunes including Martha & The Vandellas’ “Honey Chile.” It’s got a whip-cracking beat and an instrumental hook sturdy enough to hold a side of beef in a butcher’s freezer.

And when Barnes leaps in with his sub-zero cool, his whoops, moans, and wails, he takes the already propulsive track to a whole other level. It’s the sound of a man staring straight at existential peril, and the only possibility for salvation lies in the fulfillment of his desire. Will he make it out of the fix the song finds him in? It’s tough to tell, but he’s burning with so much pure passion that you can’t count him out entirely.

Unsurprisingly, Barnes eventually tired of being shortchanged as a singer by Motown. His earlier solo singles had already become fave raves of England’s Northern Soul scene by that time. (For the uninitiated, that circuit of hugely popular dance parties in big British casinos and dance halls was largely powered by R&B records overlooked in the States, and it got its name for its concentration in the North end of the country). Barnes made the move to the U.K. and found far greater acceptance there.

As for “Ain’t It the Truth,” a transmogrified version of the tune with completely different lyrics found its way onto a Mary Wells record under the name “Show Me the Way.” A Barnes recording with that lyric exists as well, and both are pretty bad-ass. But neither one can quite match the fire and fervor of the song that sat on a shelf until 2002 when it was finally freed from the shadows on A Cellarful of Motown, a collection of the label’s previously unreleased gems.

-Jim Allen

Photo: J.J. Barnes (publicity photo