Here's an interesting story from The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY.)
from May 6, 2000. It's a bit long, but worth reading.

From theTop Hat to Motown to the Hall of Fame -
Harvey Fuqua has written or produced R&B hits and developed top-flight performers, but he has received little credit for their success

BY JEFFREY LEE PUCKETT, The Courier-Journal

In Harvey Fuqua's youth, a street corner was a magic place, where hopes intersected with dreams for a tall young man with a strong voice and an even stronger will to succeed.
Fuqua and his friends would gather at 12th and Walnut streets, singing spirituals and the latest from the 1942 Hit Parade while fishing for applause and the girls' attention. It was a scene from the movies.
For a teen-age boy, the possibilities were endless. The marquee of the National - then the jewel of downtown Louisville nightspots - seemed to promise, well, everything. If you could make it from the street corner to that stage then it would all follow - money, fame, respect, women.
For most of Fuqua's friends, the National became just another building that was torn down, a fading memory filed with other fading memories.
But for Fuqua it became a bit player in a far larger story that has seen him influence a generation of musicians, shape the destiny of Motown Records and wind up an inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Still you're asking: Harvey who?

Here's who:
 In the 1950s, Fuqua founded the Moonglows, a doo-wop group that recorded one of the genre's definitive songs, ''Sincerely,'' and subsequently influenced the Temptations and Four Tops, among others.
He discovered Marvin Gaye and was the singer's producer, father-figure and confidant until Gaye's death. He also discovered the Spinners and the Dells, and helped make Etta James a star.
He wrote or co-wrote some of the finest soul/pop songs ever recorded, including the following Top-10 hits:
''Someday We'll Be Together,'' Diana Ross & the Supremes; ''If I Could Build My Whole World Around You,'' Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell; ''My Whole World Ended,'' David Ruffin; ''Twenty-Five Miles,'' Edwin Starr; ''What Does it Take (To Win Your Love),'' Junior Walker and the All-Stars; ''That's What Girls Are Made For,'' the Spinners.
 He founded Motown's Artist Development Department, which was responsible for the look, performance style and sound of the label's biggest acts. When you think of Motown and its trademark elegant professionalism, you're thinking of Fuqua's work.
He took a slew of Louisville musicians into the Top 40 throughout the early 1970s with his production, writing and management skills.
Recently Fuqua started a record label, Resurging Artists Ltd., which has released a solo album, ''T.V.O.X - The Voice of Experience,'' and a Moonglows compilation, ''Harvey & The Moonglows 2000.''
''The magnificent Fuqua!'' crowed Jerry Butler, founder of the Impressions, one of the finest rhythm & blues groups of the 1950s and 1960s (''People Get Ready,'' ''Keep On Pushing'').
''First of all, you're talking about the guy who wrote 'Sincerely,' which has to be one of the all-time doo-wop last-dance songs ever written,'' Butler said, chuckling. ''You're also talking about one of the most unique voices in my lifetime. . . .
''He's just one of those real extraordinary talents that's been able to walk in all phases of the industry and yet has never been given his just deserts, I feel, in any of the areas he's been in. He's never gotten a Grammy for being a producer, never gotten a Grammy for being a singer, and never gotten a Grammy for being a songwriter.
''And yet he's been the best of all three.''
Bonnie Raitt, pop star, guitar hero and famous redhead, has served with Fuqua for several years on the board of the Rhythm & Blues Foundation (which Butler chairs).
''I've always admired his singing, but now I appreciate all that he's done to create and shepherd some of my favorite artists and music along the way,'' she said. ''He's a leader and inspiration to all of us.''
How's that for a r sum ?

In early publicity photos of Fuqua, there's little street corner in evidence. He looks more like a black James Bond - tall, suave, impeccably put together and undoubtedly the man in charge.
It's hard to believe that just a few years earlier he was running the streets of Louisville, a starry-eyed kid striving to emulate his Uncle Charley, who played guitar for the Ink Spots. The center of Fuqua's immediate universe was the Top Hat, a class joint on Walnut Street near the street corners where he and his friends most often sang.
''It was the most beautiful place in the United States, I would say,'' said Fuqua, 70, from his second home in Concord, N.C. (the other is in Las Vegas). ''The glass-brick neon bar was almost unheard of with the exception of New York.
''I guess I started hanging out in there when I was 14. Actually, I worked there because (the owners) liked us because we were singers in the area. They liked what we were doing so they gave us after-school jobs cleaning up the beer bottles and taking the trash out.
''They'd let us sneak in and take a look at the bands; they'd let us stay half an hour, maybe one set, and then they'd make us leave.''
Fuqua's music career started on drums, then piano, but his mind was changed by a street-corner friend, Bobby Lester, who would later sing lead on many Moonglows songs.
''I wasn't interested in singing so much because he was such a great singer and I wasn't, but after he started getting all of the applause and that whole bit I thought, 'Wait a minute, maybe I should not play so much and just sing. I want some of that applause too.' ''
Fuqua's smooth baritone and Lester's soulful tenor led ''the corner boys'' to several talent-contest wins and a variety of local gigs. The duo also toured with rhythm & blues saxophonist Ed Wiley, but the partnership ended briefly in 1950 when Fuqua and his wife moved to Cleveland following a tragic fire in which their two children and her mother were killed.
''Everyone told me, 'Move, get a fresh start.' ''
Cleveland proved pivotal. Fuqua and two new friends, Danny Coggins and Prentiss Barnes, started a popular jazz vocal trio, Crazy Sounds. They worked incessantly, with Fuqua writing during the day while driving his truck route. Practices took up their evenings. Fuqua sent for Lester and the group was set. Their break came when a friend of disc jockey Alan Freed, a singer named Fats Thomas, heard Crazy Sounds at a club called the Loop. He called Freed and held out the phone so he could hear.
''Alan listened over the phone and said, 'Bring 'em down. I want to hear them in person,' '' Fuqua said.
Freed hadn't yet become the ''Father of Rock 'n' Roll,'' but he was still powerful. After deciding on The Moonglows as a new name, Freed became their manager and made sure the group worked on all of his package tours while playing their self-produced recordings on his ''Moondog'' show. The group, with Pete Walton replacing Goggins, moved to Chicago in 1953 and signed with Chess Records in 1954. One of the first songs they cut was ''Sincerely,'' which went to No. 1 on the R & B charts and stayed on the charts for 20 weeks.
Fuqua remembers what it felt like to have finally made it big.
''Glorious,'' he said. ''A job well-done kind of thing. Boy, you made it. You did it, you finally did it. You got a new car. You got some money. You buy your family a house. And you got a little money in the bank. So it was wonderful.''
The next three years were crazy. The Moonglows performed all over the country, racking up a succession of hits - ''Most of All,'' ''We Go Together, '' ''Please Send Me Someone to Love'' and ''Ten Commandments of Love.'' Fuqua was expanding his repertoire, as well, becoming a writer, producer and talent scout for Chess Records.
But there was a downside. For reasons he's never detailed, Fuqua said that Lester became increasingly difficult (some cite tensions within the group because Fuqua, as primary writer, made more money than anyone else). Lester didn't appear on the final sides that The Moonglows cut in 1957 and '58 and by late 1958 the original Moonglows were nearly over.
Fuqua was thinking that he might semi-retire from performing and concentrate on producing when his plans were challenged by a skinny kid with haunted eyes and a haunting voice.
In 1958, Fuqua and Barnes were ducking out for a quick lunch between performances when they were blindsided by a 19-year-old Marvin Gaye.
''As we're coming out the door, this little young man said, 'Mr. Harvey, Mr. Harvey, oh man, you're my favorite group, I love you guys, I have a group and we sound just like you guys, we pattern ourselves after you. Could you listen to us?'
''I told Prentiss, 'Look, take care of this guy and I'll bring you something to eat.' I sort of shined him on and just left. When I got back he was in the dressing room''
Fuqua figured that anyone so determined deserved a listen and asked Gaye to assemble the rest of his group for an audition in his hotel room after The Moonglows' evening show.
''They came back and sang for me, and I thought, 'Wow! They don't sound exactly like us but I can whip them into shape.' ''
Fuqua eventually turned Gaye's group, the Marquees, into the New Moonglows. It didn't work, but it began a relationship that lasted until Gaye was killed by his father in a 1984 shooting.
''We were like the gruesome twosome,'' Fuqua said. ''It was a real me and my shadow kind of thing.''
With Gaye under his wing, Fuqua moved in 1960 to Detroit, where Berry Gordy was establishing Motown Records. Wasting little time, Fuqua formed Harvey and Tri-Phi Records and began recording Gaye, Junior Walker and the All-Stars, the Spinners and others. He was still working for Chess (scoring a couple of hit duets with Etta James) and Chess had part ownership in Anna Records, run by Gordy's sister, Gwen.
Fuqua, by now single, fell in love with Gwen Gordy and they married. The merger didn't stop there, as Fuqua sold all of his contracts to Berry Gordy. ''I gave him my four acts in turn for a piece of the action over there,'' Fuqua said. ''It was a deal I couldn't resist. He had that machinery, and my machinery couldn't compare to his. It was all good for me.''
Fuqua's career from this point on became one of immense influence and little credit. He wrote and/or produced some of Gaye's biggest hits (right up to 1982's ''Sexual Healing''), but it was his establishment of Motown's Artists Development Department that may be his most impressive feat.
Although the acts that Fuqua had sold to Motown weren't as successful, chart-wise, they embarrassed the Motown acts during performances. People loved Fuqua's groups because he had taught them how to entertain and how to look the part. Once Berry Gordy realized this, he gave Fuqua free rein to design a department around musical director Maurice King, choreographer Cholly Atkins and charm school queen Maxine Powell.
Atkins, now living in Las Vegas, said that credit was given to the department and not to the individuals. If King, Atkins and Powell had been publicized, he said, then other labels might have tried to steal them away. Everything, he said, was filtered through Fuqua.
''Harvey was constantly in touch, when he wasn't on the golf course,'' said Atkins, 87. ''Everything we did, we ran by him. We didn't have to vote his way because that wasn't what he wanted. He said he had the best people in his department there could be, and one of the reasons for selecting us was because he wouldn't have to worry about anything.
''It made us feel good that he had that kind of confidence in us, but everything we were doing was his idea in the first place. Of course, Berry Gordy took credit for it.''
''Harvey got overlooked,'' Jerry Butler said.
To this day, Fuqua would rather tell stories about having to pick the seasoning fat out of Gaye's pork and beans than get into credit wars.
''I get a little frustrated sometimes, but I just say, 'Nope, can't do that. Don't go there,' '' he said. ''That's just what the deal was.''
Although Motown was in some ways the culmination of everything he had learned in the business, Fuqua didn't slow down after leaving the label in 1970. Since the early 1960s he had been grooming a large cast of musicians in Louisville that formed up to five different groups depending on the situation (this was before George clinton copped the idea for his Parliament-Funkadelic collective).
Fuqua signed with RCA Records and immediately began recording New Birth, the Nite-Liters, the Mint Julips, the Four Gentlemen and Love, Peace and Happiness. Between them they had 11 Top-40 hits on the R & B charts from 1971- 79, with New Birth's ''Dream Merchant'' going No. 1.
''The reason I did that is that if one group got a hit, then everyone could still work,'' he said.
Fuqua stayed busy through the disco era, producing several hits for Sylvester and Two Tons of Fun, but after Gaye's ''Midnight Love'' album, featuring ''Sexual Healing,'' Fuqua's national profile faded.
At that point he had been in the music business for nearly 40 years.
You might think that it's time for Harvey Fuqua to relax, but in 2000 he has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with The Moonglows (never one to mince words, he asked them why it had taken so long); started a new recording label, Resurging Artists, dedicated to his contemporaries who are still active (but also including a New Birth reunion); and maintains www. harveyfuqua.com, where you can purchase Resurging Artists recordings.
Fuqua, now up to seven children and 10 grandchildren, is still on the payroll of Smokey Robinson, the Temptations, Gladys Knight, the Four Tops and the Dells.
Once a month he critiques a show, just as he did at Motown, telling them what works and what doesn't. (''They call me The Fuhrer,'' he said, laughing.)
There's also his work as a board member on the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, which ensures that the music's pioneers get proper medical treatment, financial assistance and credit where it's due.
And, every once in a while, he sings. Bonnie Raitt heard him sing ''Sincerely'' twice this year, experiences she won't soon forget.
''I watched everyone's face when Harvey and The Moonglows began that song . . . and all those in the audience who were of that certain age when the record originally came out just jumped to their feet and swooned.

''. . . The song has stood the test of time. It's a classic, and so is Harvey.''