EVENT APPEARANCE

1. 2025: Maurice Watts Classic R&B Music Festival

BIOGRAPHY

Smooth and melodious soul group Enchantment formed in 1967 at Pershing High School in Detroit. Emanuel “E.J.” Johnson, Joe Thomas, Dave Banks, Ed “Mickey” Clanton, and Bobby Green obtained their first recording contract by winning first place in a 1969 talent contest sponsored by local radio station WCHB. The next year, the group joined forces with Dick Scott’s Artists International, a talent development agency for up-and-coming artists. While with AI, Enchantment honed their craft, concentrating on stage presence, choreography, and expanding their theatrical talents by performing in musical plays around the city. Enchantment became acquainted with their producer-to-be, Michael Stokes, in 1973 while performing at local nightclub Stage One. Through this union, they recorded music for the film Deliver Us from Evil. Its “Call on Me,” a single recorded with Stokes, Paul Riser, and Jimmy Roach, was issued on Polydor in 1975. Excellent but weakly promoted, the uptempo song should have been the group’s breakthrough.