[Old School Hound]

I'll finish my story about Reba Jeanette Smith.  As I mentioned, her mom and dad lived on the same street I grew up on here in Corbin. You might be asking yourself, how did a young girl from little Corbin come to be partying with Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Richie Valens the night before "The Day the Music Died" ?  Reba, who had changed her name to Debbie Stevens, and then to Penny Smith, had begun making records. As Penny Smith, she had released her first record , a song written by someone named Bill Haley, in 1958,  for a little record label out of  Chicago. In '58, she was signed to a contract with Chess Records, and released another single, and then another the following year. It was at Chess Records that she got her huge break. She met a man who worked at Chess as a writer. This man was smitten with the talent and potential of Penny . He had a dream of starting his own record label, which he would do early in 1959. His label was first called Tamla Records and the first successful act he signed was The Matadors. Well, the owner of Tamla soon changed the name of the Matadors to the Miracles and he changed the name of his record label from Tamla to MOTOWN.

That's right, the young beauty queen who started out her young life in the little hamlet of Corbin, KY had a new friend and admirer in the music business. His name was Berry Gordy, founder of MOTOWN Records.   Gordy and Smokey Robinson wrote most of Penny's early songs. Smokey, and someone by the name of Marvin Gaye, performed her songs with her on stage.  In 1960, Gordy changed her name to Debbie Dean and signed her to a three-year contract to perform and to write songs for other early MOTOWN acts.  Debbie's biggest hit was a song called "Don't Let Him Shop Around." It was a response to a song written and recorded by her friend, Smokey Robinson. That song, called "Shop Around" was a hit for Smokey Robinson & the Miracles. Not sure, but I think Debbie's song reached #39 on the charts.

Corbin's Reba Jeanette Smith, who's name changed, first,  to Debbie Stevens, then Penny Smith, and finally , to Debbie Dean, was the very first white female solo artist signed by Berry Gordy for MOTOWN  Records. Debbie went on to make other records, some of them were moderately successful, but none bigger than "Don't Let Him Shop Around."  In 1965, she recorded a song written by Ike & Tina Turner. 

As I mentioned, Gordy signed Debbie to MOTOWN to record and also to write songs for other burgeoning MOTOWN artists of the day.  Debbie wrote , or co-wrote, songs for(get this) ...   The Supremes, Martha Reeves & the Vandellas,   Edwin Starr,  The Four Tops, The Temptations,  The Jackson Five , Smokey Robinson & the Miracles , and more.  Not bad  for a little girl born in Corbin, KY , and raised during the Great Depression.  Reba Jeanette Smith(Debbie Dean) died in 2001 in California. She is buried  in Pine Hill cemetery, not far from where my grandparents and great-grandparents final resting places are located. Debbie was 73 years old when she passed away.


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   The only place you can go in Corbin to see any evidence that Reba Jeanette Smith(Debbie Dean), the first white female solo artist signed to MOTOWN, ever existed , is in a little out of the way plot of land in Pine Hill Cemetery on the east side of Corbin.  No street signs named after her, no park downtown named for her , no monument, no statue, NOTHING!!!  Completely whitewashed from the walls of history by her hometown.  If you are an old white man, with white hair and goatee, wearing a white suit , who lived in Corbin for a quarter of a century,  growing a chicken franchise, you get a statue, a festival, a park, and adoration as Corbin's most famous citizen.  If you are a white girl from a lily white town, who rubbed shoulders with all the great, early MOTOWN stars,  just three or four decades removed from the 1919 Corbin Expulsion (of all black people), all you have to remind folks that you ever existed is this:


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Smokey & the Miracles on backing vocals: