“I’m Jody, baby!” Sease proclaimed, invoking the mythical backdoor trickster / Lothario. Ghetto Man itself was an aching, doo-wop flavored ballad that recalled the work of such master soul stylists as James Carr other offerings, such as Let’s Get Married Today, Love Me or Leave Me and You’re Number One, were romantic fantasies obviously crafted for youth-oriented pop radio.īut Candy Licker, as the saying goes, was something else. That song, which had come to Sease in a dream some time earlier, and which he brought to Polygram on a self-recorded cassette tape just before they were ready to press the newly renamed Ghetto Man reissue, would soon hit the southern soul blues world with seismic force.Īdmirers of Sease’s work up to this point must have been astounded-nothing he had done, and nothing else on this album, remotely indicated that such a thing might be coming. Polygram reissued Ghetto Man in 1987 as Marvin Sease, but with an important new addition-an extended outing called Candy Licker. That LP gained enough local success to bring Sease to the attention of a record shop owner with music industry connections he, in turn, set up a series of discussions that led to Sease getting signed by Polygram. He recorded a few 45 r.p.m.’s in the ’70s-on Double M, on his own Early Records imprint-and then, in the mid-’80s, he used another of his singles, Ghetto Man, as the title track for a self-produced LP, also on Early Records. He eventually landed a steady gig at a Brooklyn club called the Casablanca. Like many scuffling vocalists, he often worked without a band, performing to pre-recorded backing tracks, although he also remembered fronting an aggregation called the Soul Keys. He formed a Temptations-style vocal group with his brothers Charlie and Harold (according to some accounts, three of his brothers may have been involved), but he soon broke free and embarked on a solo career.

All the while he kept an eye out for other opportunities. He sang and played guitar with the Mighty Gospel Crowns and a Brooklyn-based group called the Gospel Knights, with whom he recorded a few sides in the mid-’60s. Once in the big city, he again found himself singing gospel.

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