WKNR’s Scott Regen had a unique relationship with Motown. Early on, Berry Gordy, Jr. recognized the power that Keener had to break new music and many of the Motown stars paid a visit to the Scott Regen show. As Levi Stubbs notes in this air check, the Four Tops were Burger Club members.

But few people knew that Scott also tried his hand at lyricism, penning a song that was ultimately recorded by The Four Tops. He touches on this in his recent conversation with Sunny 105.9’s Bob Berry, mentioning a tune called “Yesterday And You”.

Recorded at the height of Keener’s popularity, it never really caught on and disappeared into R&B oblivion. Until a couple of years ago.

Retitled as “Magic Mary”, the tune can be heard on the CD collection “Lost and Found: Lost Without You”. But if you listen closely, the mix is different from the version that got limited airplay on Keener.

When Bob Green sent me this rarity, I could hear a tone superimposed on the audio at intervals throughout the record. I remembered that when Keener got a song first, they would often mark it up throughout with tones or jingles so that competing stations couldn’t steal it. Bob explains, “It’s so funny how, when we had a new ‘exclusive’, perhaps 10 minutes before WXYZ or CKLW or WJBK, we’d get it on the air IMMEDIATELY…with either a tone every 10 secs or a filtered “Keener-Exclusive’ line under. At least WE thought it was a big deal anyway.”