Bloodstone

Bloodstone helped drive the evolution of R&B and soul ensembles away from the frameworks of the 1950s and 1960s toward the funk-driven sounds that took hold in the 1970s and beyond.

The members first assembled in Kansas City while still attending high school, forming the a cappella doo wop outfit the Sinceres around 1962. As the decade advanced they relocated to Las Vegas by 1968, where they worked the lounge circuit alongside other secondary soul acts, most prominently Sonny Charles & the Checkmates. From there the group moved to Los Angeles and made an uncommon choice: they acquired instrumental skills and re-formed as a self-contained band. Their hallmark style emerged from the interplay between the vocal blend—drawing on doo wop, gospel, and soul—and the Hendrix-influenced guitar of Charles Love and Willis Draffen, supported by multi-layered percussion.

Record-label interest in Los Angeles remained absent, so on their manager’s counsel the musicians shifted to London in 1971. There they connected with Mike Vernon, founder of the Blue Horizon label. Vernon recorded the group, and its first single, “Natural High,” reached the R&B and pop Top Ten by early 1973, establishing the song as Bloodstone’s signature recording.

Vernon helmed the first five Bloodstone albums, which produced seven Top 20 R&B singles, nearly all of which also entered the pop Top 40. The group drew strong concert audiences and enjoyed healthy album sales. This momentum translated into a 1975 film project in which Bloodstone starred in Train Ride to Hollywood, a comedy that interwove parodies of classic Hollywood screwball films—complete with impersonations of Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, Jean Harlow, and others—with a thorough survey of Black vocal harmony traditions from the Mills Brothers to the Coasters.

Afterward the group slipped from mainstream visibility, aside from a brief Motown tenure, until the early 1980s, when it aligned with the Isley Brothers’ T-Neck imprint and released the commercially and creatively successful album We Go a Long Way Back, produced by the Brothers. The title track returned Bloodstone to the R&B Top Ten in 1982; although further T-Neck singles charted, the group’s recording activity then ceased for more than two decades.

Live performances continued, even as the original roster diminished: drummer Melvin Webb died in 1982, guitarist Willis Draffen in 2002, and guitarist Charles Love in 2014. The remaining core of Harry Williams, Charles McCormick, and Donald Brown—the last of whom joined Bloodstone in 2002—kept the group touring, issuing the album Now!...That’s What I’m Talkin’ About in 2004. A holiday collection, Forever Christmas, followed in late 2017.