The songs Brenda & the Tabulations recorded for Dionn Records are under this listing. See under Brenda and the Tabulations for a biography and the records later recorded on Top & Bottom Records.
Brenda and the Tabulations was formed at a Philadelphia playground during the summer of ‘66 by vocalist Brenda Payton and organist Maurice Coates for the purpose of putting on a show for the neighborhood kids (Gilda Woods fortuitously happened by and heard their youthful performance). This storybook beginning to their career turned not only on Gilda Woods’s driving by at the right place at the right time. It also depended on Maurice Coates’s answering in the affirmative when Gilda asked whether they wrote any of their own material. They had, to that point, never written a song, but they had started one Brenda and Maurice hammered out their iconic song, “Dry Your Eyes.” Maurice Coates recalled, Gilda Woods “ was cruising by in her convertible and stopped, slammed on the brakes,” says Coates. “She asked us how long we’d been together. I said, ‘We’ve been together for awhile.’ We’d only been together for one week. And she said, ‘Do you have any original tunes?’ I said yes. Which we didn’t. She said, ‘I’ll meet you next Saturday.’ And Brenda turned around and said, ‘Maurice, we don’t have no original songs!’ I said, ‘Yes, we do! Don’t you remember the one we were working on the other day?’”
A scant two days later, Brenda and Maurice had created the breathtaking doo-wop-infused ballad “Dry Your Eyes.” “We collaborated. I just did the music, and she did all the lyrics,” says Maurice. “We had to do something in a couple days to convince Gilda that we did have an original tune. So it was just impulse and good dumb luck!” Woods auditioned the group and their brand-new song at Maurice’s home. “She loved it,” says Coates. “We got a contract offer, and we went through it and signed it. The next week, we went in the studio.”
Devising a catchy moniker for the group was the first order of business. “All these names came up, and I said, ‘Whoa, whoa, guys, listen. Think about money. This is what it’s all about!’” says Maurice. “So I came up with the word ‘tabulation.’ And they said, ‘Well, what does tabulation mean?’ I said, ‘Well, tabulate! You’re counting the money!’”
The B side, “The Wash,” was meant to be a sendup of silly dances by giving them practical movements while they “do the wash.” The sendup was revived more than 40 years later when Axe soap licensed the original song and recording for their 2011 worldwide advertisement featuring bathing on the beach to the tune of “The Wash.”
Revered Philly soul architects Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff produced the group’s last pair of Dionn singles including the group’s last Dionn offering, “The Price You Have To Pay,” which was an R&B hit in the summer of 1969.
Brenda and the Tabulations are a reminder of an era when kids off the street with the right voice and songs could fulfill their dreams.
