Ronnie McNeir

Ronnie McNeir ranks among the most overlooked innovators of synthesizer techniques within soul and pop. Across three full-length albums plus one EP he developed an entirely personal method of layering electronic sounds. Hyperkinetic broken-chord jazzy synth-bass figures, church-inflected organ textures, densely voiced piano chords, and sinuous high- and mid-range ARP leads move continuously through the arrangements while McNeir performed every vocal and acoustic drum part himself. His instrumental resources consisted of acoustic piano, melodica, ARP 2000 and ARP Rhapsody synthesizers, and an organ rhythm box he nicknamed “Mister Ed.” In addition to core soul listeners and steppers, collectors of Northern soul and beach music have long prized numerous titles from his catalog.

A native of Camden, Alabama, McNeir relocated to Detroit, Michigan, while still a child. He acquired his keyboard skills by ear, absorbing contemporary Motown and jazz releases. During his teenage years a local talent contest victory earned him the Deto single “Sitting in My Class.” In 1972 he traveled to California and, while performing in church, encountered former Motown personnel Kim Weston and Mickey Stevenson. Using Weston’s private studio he cut his RCA debut album, Ronnie McNeir, which contained the non-standard “Summertime” and “Young Girl”; the former track later served as the foundation for the enduring favorite “I’m Your Lover.” The LP was reissued near the end of the decade and remained a steady seller in Britain.

Back in Michigan he resumed church performances and session work, chiefly at Detroit’s United Sound Studio, and took a sales position at Mattel to supplement his income. In 1976 he recorded the mid-tempo groover “Wendy Is Gone” for Barney Ales’ Prodigal imprint, Motown’s developmental subsidiary. The single gained traction in Detroit and several other markets, reaching the lower reaches of Billboard’s soul chart. Prodigal issued another album titled Ronnie McNeir; its charting sides “Saggitarian Affair” and “I’m Your Lover” secured McNeir an appearance on Soul Train. “Wendy Is Gone,” “I’m Your Lover,” and “Nothing but a Heartache” all became steppers staples, prompting Motown to sign him the same year.

Love’s Comin’ Down, his first Motown album, appeared in August 1976. Motown veteran Clarence Paul served as co-producer, and a pre-Raydio Ray Parker Jr. contributed occasional guitar. McNeir also collaborated with Smokey Robinson on the Big Time soundtrack—whose title track highlights his keyboard prowess—and on the Love Breeze album. Despite positive notices in Billboard, U.K. Black Music, and other outlets, none of the singles (“Selling My Heart to the Junkman,” “It Won’t Be Long (Before We’re All Gone),” “Have You Ever Seen Them Shake,” and “Love’s Comin’ Down”) produced a chart entry, and a projected second Motown album remained unreleased. Around this period McNeir contributed two tracks to the Four Tops’ 1977 ABC album The Show Must Go On; he later became the group’s musical director and appears on their 1995 Motown holiday set Christmas Here With You.

During the late seventies McNeir joined Detroit producer Don Davis’s Groovesville Productions, working with Johnnie Taylor and the Dramatics among others, and can be heard on David Ruffin sides plus L.J. Reynolds’s solo Capitol album. As a Groovesville artist he released the duet “A Different Kind of Love” with Rena Scott on Davis’s RCA-distributed Tortoise International label. In 1984 Capitol issued the four-song Horizon Productions EP The Ronnie McNeir Experience, whose only charting single, the Rene Moore–Angela Winbush composition “Come on Be With Me,” appeared that year.

McNeir reached the upper half of Billboard’s R&B chart in 1985 as producer and composer of “I Couldn’t Believe It,” a Nick Martinelli remix that became a hit for David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks recording as Ruffin & Kendricks on RCA. The busy songwriter, session musician, vocalist, and producer also lent his talents to Little Milton’s Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number, Rance Allen’s Stax/Fantasy album, Carrie Lucas’s cover of “Hello Stranger” from the Solar/RCA set Horsing Around, and Bobby Womack’s “Caught Up in the Middle” from Pieces. Strong demand for his earlier RCA and Prodigal recordings generated repeated concert and studio engagements in Britain throughout the eighties and nineties.