{"id":20305,"date":"2013-03-28T13:20:43","date_gmt":"2013-03-28T17:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=20305"},"modified":"2013-03-28T13:20:43","modified_gmt":"2013-03-28T17:20:43","slug":"deke-richards-motown-songwriter-producer-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=20305","title":{"rendered":"Deke Richards, Motown Songwriter-Producer, Dies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Motown songwriter-producer <strong>Deke Richards<\/strong> has died at a hospice at age 68.<\/p>\n<p>Richards, whose real name was <strong>Dennis Lussier<\/strong>, died Sunday at the Whatcom Hospice House, Peace Health St. Joseph Medical Center spokeswoman <strong>Amy Cloud<\/strong> confirmed Monday. <strong>Richards<\/strong> had been battling esophageal cancer, according to a statement from Universal Music.<\/p>\n<p>As leader of the Motown songwriting, arranging and producing team known as The Corporation, <strong>Richards <\/strong>was involved in writing and producing many <strong>Jackson 5<\/strong> hits.<\/p>\n<p>Those songs included the <strong>Jackson 5\u2019s<\/strong> first three No. 1 hits \u2014 <em>\u201cI Want You Back,<\/em>\u201d<em> \u201dABC,\u201d<\/em> and <em>\u201cThe Love You Save.\u201d<\/em> He also co-wrote <em>\u201cLove Child\u201d<\/em> for <strong>Diana Ross &amp; The Supremes<\/strong>, as well as <strong>Ross\u2019 <\/strong>solo <em>\u201cI\u2019m Still Waiting.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Other recording artists for whom <strong>Richards<\/strong> produced or wrote songs include <strong>Bobby Darina <\/strong>and <strong>Martha Reeves &amp; the Vandellas<\/strong>. He is survived by his wife,<strong> Joan Lussier<\/strong>, a brother and two nephews.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Motown songwriter-producer Deke Richards has died at a hospice at age 68. Richards, whose real name was Dennis Lussier, died Sunday at the Whatcom Hospice House, Peace Health St. Joseph Medical Center spokeswoman Amy Cloud confirmed Monday. Richards had been battling esophageal cancer, according to a statement from Universal Music. As leader of the Motown [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}