Vinyl record on turntable black and white
They had the look. They had the moves. They even had the kid with the angelic voice. For a minute, it looked like Cleveland had its own version of the Jackson 5. But unlike their famous counterparts, the Ponderosa Twins Plus One never got the machine behind them.
“Devon called them ‘Cleveland’s Jackson 5’—and he wasn’t wrong,” Mason says. “They had the talent. But they didn’t have the push.”
The group was made up of two sets of twins, plus a young lead singer named Ricky Spicer. Just like Michael, Ricky had a voice that could cut through a room. Pure. Sweet. And emotional.
“He didn’t just sing. He felt it. That’s what Sylvia Robinson saw in him.”
Sylvia Robinson, who later made history founding Sugar Hill Records and launching hip-hop with “Rapper’s Delight,” took the group under her wing. She worked them hard—flying them into D.C. on weekends, mentoring them, developing their style.
“They were skipping school on Mondays just to rehearse with her,” Mason adds. “That’s how much faith she had in them.”
Their song “Bound” became a minor regional hit. It didn’t blow up—but it stuck around. Long enough, in fact, that decades later, Kanye West sampled Ricky’s voice on “Bound 2.” That high-pitched vocal line—“Uh-huh, honey”—is straight from Spicer’s childhood recording.
“That voice had the magic. It just didn’t have the marketing.”
The sample sparked a lawsuit. Ricky won. But it also reminded people of what could’ve been. A group with all the right parts—but none of the spotlight.
“If they had been born in Detroit instead of Cleveland? Who knows.”
It’s a story of timing, geography, and the difference between potential and opportunity. And it’s why Mason always says—
“There’s a thousand Jackson 5s out there. We only heard one.”
