Jeannie Reynolds

Jeannie Reynolds, whose brother was L.J. Reynolds of the Dramatics, earned her lasting recognition through the track “The Fruit Song.” Although that number remained her signature piece, her strongest commercial showing arrived with the brisk Casablanca single “The Phone’s Been Jumping All Day,” which climbed to number ten on Billboard’s R&B chart during the summer of 1975. Its immediate successor, “Lay Some Lovin’ on Me,” became the only additional entry she placed on the R&B listings. Casablanca released her album Cherries, Bananas and Other Fine Things, whose cover carried a playful “fruitful” motif, in June 1976. One selection from that set, “The Fruit Song,” written by Lawrence Payton of the Four Tops alongside Fred Bridges, emerged as a major disco success, later prized by collectors and adopted as a steppers classic. A second Casablanca album, One Wish, appeared under the supervision of Don Davis, whose prior clients included Johnnie Taylor, the Dramatics, Marilyn McCoo, and Billy Davis, Jr. In 1980 Jeannie Reynolds ended the lives of her two children and then took her own.