The Dramatics

Initially performing under the moniker the Dynamics, the six-voice ensemble of Rob Davis, Ron Banks, Larry Reed, Robert Ellington, Larry "Squirrel" Demps, and Elbert Wilkens issued a pair of singles on the Wingate imprint that failed to register on any chart. After Ellington departed, the lineup shrank to five members and adopted the name the Dramatics. The act then moved to the Sport label, where its first chart entry arrived in 1967 with the single “All Because of You,” which climbed to number 42 on the R&B survey. Limited sales and mounting frustration among several members soon triggered further turnover: lead vocalist Reed stepped aside for William “Wee Gee” Howard, while Willie Ford of the Capitols assumed Rob Davis’s bass role. Around the same period the Dramatics aligned with producer Don Davis’s production company.

Despite the lineup stabilizing, commercial momentum remained elusive. From 1967 through 1971 the group made scant impression on national charts or sales reports. Late in 1971, Don Davis called the members into the studio to cut songwriter Tony Hester’s “Watcha See Is Watcha Get.” The track became the Dramatics’ breakthrough, rising to number three on the R&B chart and lingering for fifteen weeks. Its follow-up, “Get Up and Get Down,” also reached the R&B Top Ten.

The next year Hester supplied another composition, “In the Rain,” which seized the top spot on the R&B chart for four straight weeks and simultaneously peaked at number five on the pop chart. Even as national visibility grew, internal shifts continued. Larry “L.J.” Reynolds, formerly of Chocolate Syrup and then pursuing solo work, encountered Ron Banks backstage at the Apollo after one of the group’s shows. With Howard absent that evening, Reynolds auditioned on the spot; shortly afterward he began filling in during Howard’s occasional absences, all while remaining under contract to Don Davis’s company.

Howard’s permanent exit in 1973 cleared the way for Reynolds to join full-time, an addition signaled by the R&B Top Ten single “Hey You! Get Off My Mountain.” Concurrently, Lenny Mayes took Elbert Wilkens’s place, prompting Wilkens to launch his own touring version of the Dramatics. Legal complications during this overlap led the original act to bill itself temporarily as Ron Banks & the Dramatics.

Throughout the disco era the group sustained a run of mainly R&B Top 20 singles, returning to the R&B Top Ten only once more with “Welcome Back Home” in 1980. Reynolds launched a solo career in 1981, and the band dissolved after Banks went solo in 1983. Periodic reunions followed, yielding fresh recordings every three or four years from the early eighties onward and occasional joint concert appearances.