Biography
In the mid-1960s Kendra Spotswood issued a string of potent yet obscure singles both under her own steam and alongside her boyfriend at the time, the composer and producer Van McCoy, yet just one of those sides ever carried her legal name, which left even diligent researchers puzzled about the shape of her path. Born in Englewood, New Jersey, she grew up in the same neighborhood that produced the Isley Brothers, Clyde McPhatter, and Chuck Jackson, a setting that made a life in music feel almost preordained. At eighteen she met her next-door neighbor, Scepter/Wand employee Van McCoy, and the two quickly became romantically involved; that same year she made her first professional appearance, adding background vocals to the McCoy-produced Four Buddies single “Lonely Summer.” Later in 1963 Philips released her solo debut, issued under the alias Kenni Woods and titled “Can’t He Take a Hint.” One further Kenni Woods record, “Back With My Baby,” appeared before Spotswood joined the Shirelles for roughly two years of touring; contractual obligations to Philips kept her out of the recording studio during that period. She and McCoy nevertheless continued working together on a run of pseudonymously credited singles, among them the Pacettes’ “You Don’t Know Baby,” Jack & Jill’s “Two of a Kind,” and the Fantastic Vantastics’ “Gee What a Boy.” The sole release to bear her birth name arrived in 1965 with the single “Stickin’ With My Baby.”
For the 1967 OKeh single “You’re Gonna Make Me Love You,” a driving stomper that attracted almost no attention at the time, Spotswood and McCoy invented the name Sandi Sheldon. The same lack of commercial response greeted the Vonettes’ 1968 Cobblestone release “Touch My Heart,” after which Spotswood moved to Atlanta and stepped away from the music industry altogether. Exactly how “You’re Gonna Make Me Love You” resurfaced remains uncertain, though one frequently repeated account holds that a copy surfaced among singles BBC Radio One DJ John Peel sold to dealer Graham Stapleton, who then passed it to “Froggy” Taylor, then resident DJ at the Northern soul venue the Twisted Wheel. Taylor’s spins of the track ignited the crowd, and the record has stayed a Northern soul staple ever since. For many years Spotswood’s location and true identity stayed unknown, until she eventually discovered her later renown and began performing again for enthusiastic all-nighter audiences.
For the 1967 OKeh single “You’re Gonna Make Me Love You,” a driving stomper that attracted almost no attention at the time, Spotswood and McCoy invented the name Sandi Sheldon. The same lack of commercial response greeted the Vonettes’ 1968 Cobblestone release “Touch My Heart,” after which Spotswood moved to Atlanta and stepped away from the music industry altogether. Exactly how “You’re Gonna Make Me Love You” resurfaced remains uncertain, though one frequently repeated account holds that a copy surfaced among singles BBC Radio One DJ John Peel sold to dealer Graham Stapleton, who then passed it to “Froggy” Taylor, then resident DJ at the Northern soul venue the Twisted Wheel. Taylor’s spins of the track ignited the crowd, and the record has stayed a Northern soul staple ever since. For many years Spotswood’s location and true identity stayed unknown, until she eventually discovered her later renown and began performing again for enthusiastic all-nighter audiences.