The early Seventies were a golden age of one-hit wonders. Johnny Bristol was another, though this disco classic was far from his only contribution to pop history.

As writer and producer of many of Motown’s biggest hits – including some of the best-loved songs of all time – he’s one of its most important and influential figures. And he looks like he just walked out of a scene in Jackie Brown.

 came from down South but made his name up in Detroit over the course of more than a decade at Motown, producing, writing, singing – and even marrying the boss’s daughter, Iris Gordy.

His legacy includes all-time classics like Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, Help Me Make It Through The Night and Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday.
And, in his own right, this fantastic X-certificate song about first-time love, with lyrics to make a girl blush – and a voice to seducee her with his smooth seduction.

Taylor blends the sex appeal of Barry White and Al Green (and the smooth seductive funk of his Love Unlimited Orchestra) with the pop sensibility of his Motown heritage, all wrapped in the shiny new clothes of disco: all hi-hats and bubbling bass and wakka-wakka guitar chops.

“Now that we’ve caressed a kiss so warm and tender / I can’t wait til we reach that sweet moment of surrender,” sings Johnny, before delivering the coup-de-grace that somehow slipped past the censors: “Oh, we’ll hear the thunder roar, feel the lightning strike / At a point we’ll both decide to meet at the same time tonight.” Oo-er!

Between his arrival at Motown in 1961 and departure in 1973 Taylor, in partnership with Harvey Fuqua, wrote and produced hits for Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross and Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson, Edwin Starr and Martha Reeves, Jimmy Ruffin and David Ruffin, The Four Tops and The Detroit Spinners. And, as they say, many more.

After leaving in 1973 to join CBS as a producer, he worked with stars like Johnny Mathis and Boz Scaggs – creating the ‘blue-eyed soul’ style of his seminal Slow Dancer album – and wrote songs for an up-and-coming Randy Crawford, as well as half the songs on Tom Jones’s 1975 album Memories Don’t Leave Like People Do (well worth looking up, btw).

But, having guided so many others to stardom, by his 30s he was eager to launch his own singing career, and when CBS passed on offering him a recording contract, he signed with MGM as a solo artist.

This was his biggest (and, in the UK, only) hit, though he had some more success when his duet with Amii Stewart in 1980 – a medley of My Guy and My Girl – scraped into the Top 40.