There Was Only One Ollie McLaughlin

Mary Hinton-Branner attended Jones School in the 1950s, from kindergarten through sixth grade. She remembers going to the Dunbar Community Center and playing in the neighborhood with her eleven siblings. She recalls how the rise in public housing led to the gentrification of “The Old Neighborhood.”
Barbara Lewis is from the Ann Arbor area where I grew up. She was born in Salem Township, part of Washtenaw County, and just outside Ann Arbor. Lewis was managed by Ollie McLaughlin, whom we all knew. McLaughlin not only produced Barbara Lewis, but also Dion Jackson, who was a friend of ours. And our one-time manager Hugh "Jeep" Holland and McLaughlin worked together in the same Ann Arbor scene. Pop- group manager Jeep Holland met his match in our group, the Prime Movers Blues Band.