“Give Me Just a Little More Time” was the debut single for Chairmen of the Board, released in 1970 through Capitol Records on Holland–Dozier–Holland’s Invictus Records label.
The song was written and produced by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, Edward Holland, Jr., and Ron Dunbar. Because of the then still-pending lawsuit against Holland-Dozier-Holland from their former employers, Motown, the trio credited themselves with the pseudonym “Edythe Wayne” for this song and many other early Invictus/Hot Wax releases. “Give Me Just a Little More Time” features Chairmen of the Board lead singer General Johnson as the narrator, begging a lover not to rush intimacy: “We both want the sweetness in life/ But these things don’t come overnight.”
Members of Motown’s in-house band, The Funk Brothers, who played all of Holland-Dozier-Holland’s previous hits, played on this recording as well as many other Invictus/Hot Wax recordings.
“Give Me Just a Little More Time”, backed with “Since the Days of Pigtails & Fairytales”, peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, making it the best-performing of the Chairmen’s singles, and the first of the Chairmen’s four Billboard Hot 100 Top 40 pop hits. The single also peaked at number-eight on the Billboard R&B Singles chart. It reached number three in the UK Singles Chart in September 1970, having already sold more than one million copies in the US.[1] The first Chairmen of the Board LP, a self-titled release, included the single; after the single’s success, the Chairmen of the Board album was reissued as Give Me Just a Little More Time.
In 1982, American R&B singer Angela Clemmons remade the song and it peaked at #4 on Billboard’s Hot Dance Music/Club Play Singles chart.
The Funk Brothers who played on “Give Me Just A Little More Time” included:
Bass: Bob Babbitt
Guitarists: Dennis Coffey, Eddie Willis, and Ray Monette
Keyboards: Johnny Griffith
Drums: Richard “Pistol” Allen
Percussion: Jack Ashford
Give Me Just a Little More Time
Give me just a little more time
And our love will surely grow
Give me just a little more time
And our love will surely grow
Life’s too short to make a mistake
Let’s think of each other and hesitate
Young and impatient we may be
There’s no need to act foolishly
If we part our hearts won’t forget it
Years from now we’ll surely regret it
Give me just a little more time
And our love will surely grow
Give me just a little more time
And our love will surely grow
You’re young and you’re in a hurry
You’re eager for love but don’t you worry
We both want the sweetness in life
But these things don’t come overnight
Don’t give up ’cause love’s been slow
Girl, we’re gonna succeed with another blow
Give me just a little more time
And our love will surely grow
Baby please…
Love is that mountain we must climb
Let’s climb it together your hand in mine
We haven’t known each other too long
But the feeling I have is oh so strong
I know we can make it, there’s no doubt
We owe it to ourselves to find it out, just
Give me just a little more time
And our love will surely grow
Give me just a little more time
And our love will surely grow
Give me just a little more time
And our love will surely grow
Baby, please baby
Baby, please baby
Songwriters: Edythe Wayne / Ronald Dunbar
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Patches (I’m Depending on You)
The song was written by General Johnson, the lead singer of Chairmen of the Board, with Ron Dunbar, who worked in A&R and record production at the Invictus record label, owned and overseen by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland, formerly of Motown. Dunbar was often credited with co-writing hit songs at Invictus with “Edyth Wayne”, a pseudonym used by Holland-Dozier-Holland during the time when they were in legal dispute with Motown and its music publishing arm Jobete to which they had been contracted.
The song tells a story about how a boy born and raised in poverty in Alabama “on a farm way back up in the woods” took over responsibility for his family from his dying father. “Patches” was included on Chairmen of the Board’s first album, The Chairmen of the Board (later reissued as Give Me Just a Little More Time), and was the B-side of the group’s July 1970 single, “Everything’s Tuesday”, their third chart hit.
The blind blues singer Clarence Carter heard the song, later saying: “I heard it on the Chairmen of the Board LP and liked it, but I had my own ideas about how it should be sung. It was my idea to make the song sound real natural…” Initially he thought “that it would be degrading for a black man to sing a song so redolent of subjugation” but was persuaded to do so by record producer Rick Hall, who told him that it related to his own personal history as he was growing up.
Carter recorded the song at the FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, with Hall as producer and musicians including Junior Lowe (guitar), Jesse Boyce (bass), and Freeman Brown (drums). Carter’s recording was released in July 1970 and was described by a Billboard reviewer as a “powerful blues item” featuring a “blockbuster vocal work-out.” The record rose to #4 on the Hot 100, #2 on the R&B chart, and #2 on the UK singles chart.
Following Carter’s success, the song won the 1971 Grammy Award for Best Rhythm & Blues Song for its writers, Johnson and Dunbar.
Patches (I’m Depending on You)
I was born and raised down in Alabama
On a farm way back up in the woods
I was so ragged that folks used to call me Patches
Papa used to tease me about it
‘Cause deep down inside he was hurt
‘Cause he’d done all he could
My papa was a great old man
I can see him with a shovel in his hands, see
Education he never had
He did wonders when the times got bad
The little money from the crops he raised
Barely paid the bills we made
For life had kick him down to the ground
When he tried to get up
Life would kick him back down
One day Papa called me to his dyin’ bed
Put his hands on my shoulders
And in his tears he said
He said, Patches
I’m dependin’ on you, son
To pull the family through
My son, it’s all left up to you
Two days later Papa passed away, and
I became a man that day
So I told Mama I was gonna quit school, but
She said that was Daddy’s strictest rule
So every mornin’ ‘fore I went to school
I fed the chickens and I chopped wood too
Sometimes I felt that I couldn’t go on
I wanted to leave, just run away from home
But I would remember what my daddy said
With tears in his eyes on his dyin’ bed
He said, Patches
I’m dependin’ on you, son
I tried to do my best
It’s up to you to do the rest
Then one day a strong rain came
And washed all the crops away
And at the age of 13 I thought
I was carryin’ the weight of the
Whole world on my shoulders
And you know, Mama knew
What I was goin’ through, ’cause
Every day I had to work the fields
‘Cause that’s the only way we got our meals
You see, I was the oldest of the family
And everybody else depended on me
Every night I heard my Mama pray
Lord, give him the strength to make another day
So years have passed and all the kids are grown
The angels took Mama to a brand new home
Lord knows, people, I shedded tears
But my daddy’s voice kept me through the years
Sing,
Patches, I’m dependin’ on you, son
To pull the family through
My son, it’s all left up to you
Oh, I can still hear Papa’s voice sayin’
Patches, I’m dependin’ on you, son
I’ve tried to do my best
It’s up to you to do the rest
I can still hear Papa, what he said
Patches, I’m dependin’ on you, son
To pull the family through
My son, it’s all left up to you
Written by: Ronald Dunbar, Norman Johnson
Lyrics © EMI Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patches_(Chairmen_of_the_Board_song)
Watch a video of the song here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNpt161iG-Q