Born Darrell Eubanks in Mansfield, Ohio in 1937, the gospel-rooted soul singer emerged professionally as Darrell Banks after settling on Buffalo’s east side as a young child. Church singing gave way to secular performances in neighborhood clubs, where he connected with dentist Doc Murphy, proprietor of the Revilot lounge. A fiery composition by fellow Buffalonian Donnie Elbert launched Banks’s career, though success arrived not locally but in Detroit.
Through a licensing arrangement between Doc Murphy and Lebron Taylor’s Solid Hitbound Productions, Revilot Records appeared in 1966 with “Open the Door to Your Heart,” legally titled “Baby Walk Right In,” the Elbert number cut while its composer toured. Only Banks received songwriter credit on release. Elbert, checking BMI records, discovered that Banks had filed the clearance form naming himself sole author entitled to the entire writer’s share. The dispute was later resolved, yet original pressings list solely Banks while later compact-disc editions acknowledge both writers. Elbert maintained that Banks merely accelerated the tempo and thereby claimed half ownership of a soul standard. In reality Banks wrote no other material; Elbert accumulated more than 125 BMI songwriting credits. Amid the conflict the single reached number two R&B and number 27 pop, Banks’s highest-charting release.
He next recorded Marc Gordon and Frank Wilson’s “Somebody Somewhere Needs You,” previously introduced by Ike & Tina Turner on Loma. Banks’s version climbed to number 34 R&B and number 55 pop, sustaining live work on the chitlin’ circuit. Revilot’s association shifted to Atlantic’s Atco imprint, yielding the 1967 couplings “Here Come the Tears” backed with “I’ve Got That Feelin’” and “Angel Baby (Don’t Ever Leave Me)” backed with “Look into the Eyes of a Fool.” Although Revilot issued no album to capitalize on the hit, both Revilot singles, the Atco sides, and additional tracks such as “I’m Gonna Hang My Head and Cry” appeared on the 1967 Atco long-player Darrell Banks Is Here. Atco moved him to its Cotillion subsidiary for the 1968 single “I Wanna Go Home,” written by Fred Briggs and Don Davis, coupled with “The Love of My Woman.” Revilot continued releasing sides by Parliament, Rose Batiste, J. J. Barnes and others without Murphy’s participation. Banks then signed with Stax’s Volt label, issuing two 1969 singles and the album Darrell Is Here to Stay; “I’m the One Who Loves You,” the double-sided “Beautiful Feeling” / “No One Is Blinder (Than a Man in Love),” and further selections sold respectably yet generated no additional pressings. The Dramatics later covered “Beautiful Feeling” on Dramatically Yours.
Offstage Banks projected a brooding, volatile demeanor that discouraged casual approach. Stax’s Rare Stamps compilation mistakenly credited him with a Steve Mancha performance, an error Banks deemed insulting; both vocalists, along with J. J. Barnes, bore similar timbres under Don Davis’s production. The original LP contained only Barnes and Mancha material, but a compact-disc reissue appended Banks’s complete Volt album, including his Johnnie Taylor-styled “Don’t Know What to Do,” “Forgive Me,” and Mancha’s “I Could Never Hate Her.”
Seven singles and two albums constituted Banks’s entire discography before tragedy struck. In March 1970 an off-duty Detroit officer, Aaron Bullock, fatally shot the singer outside the home of Banks’s companion Marjorie Bozeman after an altercation; Banks, divorced and father of two, had reportedly been attempting to prevent Bozeman, a barmaid, from leaving him. Collectors seeking further material may locate the duet “Harder You Love” with J. J. Barnes on The Groovesville Masters or the 1997 Goldmine anthology The Lost Soul, which gathers both albums plus the previously unreleased “I Will Fear No Evil,” “I’m Knocking at Your Door,” and “The Harder You Love.”
