The Marvelettes in 1966

What It Was Like
Calling Out Around the World: Motown Turns 50

by Diane Leach

[30 January 2009]

In the early '80s Detroit, Motown was as unquestionable as air. Who didn't like air?

I was born in Detroit and lived there until I was 17 years old.

It was like this:

We weren’t a city with much to be proud of. Then, as now, we had a corrupt mayor. Then, as now, the auto industry was failing and taking the city’s denizens with it. Most of us—my family included—had a great deal to worry about. But Motown was something everybody could be proud of. In a city divided by race and religion, Motown was a source of near universal agreement. Nobody ever yelled “turn that shit down!” when the Supremes or Little Stevie Wonder (as late as the 1980s, DJs were still calling him “Little") or the Temptations were on the radio. And they often were.

Motown was as unquestionable as air. Who didn’t like air?

It was like this.

One of the Four Tops lived in my neighborhood. I’m not sure which one, only that he drove a black Cadillac sedan with a vanity plate reading “FOUR TOPS”. Whenever my mother saw him, she honked and waved. He would nod back gravely.

I attended school with one of the Spinners’ daughters. In fifth grade she was a sullen, angry child whose demeanor rebuffed any questioning about her famous father.

I also attended school with Smokey Robinson’s goddaughter. I was good friends with this girl, who was beautiful, smart, and a talented dancer. Her family moved among Detroit’s black elite. Our friendship ended when she transferred to Cass, Detroit’s version of the High School for Performing Arts.

My friends down the street attended Mercy High School with Gladys Knight’s niece.

It was like this.

One day—July 13th, 1984, to be exact—I skipped out on my summer job to see Martha and the Vandellas play a free concert at the Universal Mall. My mother went with me. The Universal Mall was far out on the east side of the city, not a place where Jews or blacks were welcomed. Normally we shopped at Northland, literally ducking bullets. But Martha and the Vandellas were playing the Universal Mall (probably because it was much safer), and we went.

I was 16-years-old. I carried my Minolta SLR, which I took everywhere in those days, and shot dozens of photos. Martha and the Vandellas were got up in gold lamé, backed by a horn section, drummer, guitarist, and bassist. I was so close to Ms. Reeves that she smiled into my camera. Several times. In between songs she introduced the Vandellas. One was a social worker; I forget what the other did, something equally useful. They were wonderful: Martha Reeves has a terrific voice. Martha is now on Detroit’s embattled City Council, and I hope she did no wrong.

It was like this.

I remember the night Marvin Gaye, Sr. shot his son, Marvin, Jr. It happened only miles from my family home, a stupid argument over insurance, and the media interviewed Martha Reeves, who was obviously in shock. Her lips were trembling. “I just can’t believe it,” she repeated. Neither could the rest of us.

It was like this.

One day we were driving down the John Lodge Expressway when my mother pointed out three tall towers. See those? That’s the Brewster Projects. That’s where Diana Ross is from. Berry Gordy had to teach her to eat with a fork.

I don’t know whether Diana Ross could use a fork or not before Berry Gordy made her a star, but I do know about Motown’s “Charm School” and house choreographer Cholly Atkins. Everyone did. It was like knowing about the air, or the big, beautiful, archaic cars we manufactured, driving through that air.


Stevie Wonder in 1970

It was like this.

My mother loved Motown. In 1971, stuck at home without a car and three kids under five, she played an endless loop of eight track tapes. The Supremes, Gladys Knight and the Pips (she loathed the Pips, and pitied poor Gladys, who was stuck with them), the Four Tops, the Temptations. When I began school, I had never heard of Mother Goose and knew no nursery rhymes. I could, however, sing all of “Baby Love”, “Where Did Our Love Go”, and “Stop! In the Name of Love”.

Anybody questioning my rosy view need only consult the J. Geils Band’s 1976 recording Blow Your Face Out. It was recorded live in Boston and Detroit. In Detroit, the band played a cover of “Where Did Our Love Go” to a drunken, stoned, sellout show full of blue-collar rock ‘n’ roll diehards. They went batshit. One might also consult the countless covers of Motown songs: Peter Frampton singing “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours”, Mick Jagger and David Bowie doing “Dancing in the Streets”, Vanilla Fudge’s “You Keep Me Hanging On”, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s long, long interpretation of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”, Soft Cell’s (remember them?) whiny version of “Where Did Our Love Go”, Phil Collins’ “You Can’t Hurry Love”. Ad infinitum.

It was like this.

In 1985 my family moved to California. Nobody was buying those big beautiful American cars any more, giving rise to region-wide unemployment and early fodder for a young idealist named Michael Moore.

I did not understand that living in a place possessing its own brand of music was unusual until we arrived in Los Angeles, where people made movies instead. Making movies, for Californians, involved much of same feeling Motown did for Detroiters: a sense of ownership, pride, glamour, perhaps even enjoyment. But California movie glamour was a whole other thing, because it involved more money. Lots more money. This is not to say that Berry Gordy didn’t want to make money: he did. He left Detroit early on.

But Motown was more homespun: Martha and the Vandellas, free at the mall. It’s difficult to imagine Chevy Chase doing stand-up in a San Fernando Valley Galleria just for kicks, and if a movie star lives in your neighborhood, chances are your neighborhood is much nicer than the one I grew up in. And movie star offspring do not attend public schools.

I say it was like this, past tense, because it’s all gone now. The original Motown Records has morphed and folded and is no longer Gordy’s baby. Diana Ross seems to spend more time getting into trouble than performing, and Michael Jackson has also folded and morphed into something warped and barely recognizable. Florence Ballard is dead. Only one of the original Temptations, Otis Williams, is still alive. Gladys Knight has battled compulsive gambling.

Their hometown, our hometown, has collapsed. The music still plays, perhaps, but not on the radio. Certainly not on eight-track tapes.

There is something wrenchingly anachronistic about downloading “My Girl” or “My Cherie Amor”. It’s music for riding in the Buick, taking Greenfield down to Eight Mile Road (yes, that Eight Mile), the radio tuned to WLBS. We’re going to Northland, where we’ll scope out deals in Hudson’s basement. We’ll try on the hats, shoes for you, a sweater for me. The store speakers will not pump Muzak, but “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg”. Only we won’t really notice, because who notices air?

Only people who aren’t getting enough of it.

That’s what it was like.
[Edited 1/31/09 20:41pm]
[Edited 1/31/09 20:42pm]

Diana Ross

Needles in the Haystack

[30 January 2009]
by PopMatters Staff



Chris Clark, “If You Should Walk Away” (1967)

In this time of celebrating all things Motown, Chris Clark—an accomplished singer, songwriter, photographer, and film executive—remains relatively unsung outside of the label’s completists and Northern Soul enthusiasts. Clark faced a number of hurdles as a recording artist in the mid-to-late ‘60s, and to my knowledge none of them had anything to do with the quality of her musical output. As a white singer on the Motown label, she was met with misgiving by media, fans, and fellow artists. One of the best anecdotes about Clark has her performing at the Fox Theatre in Detroit to a particularly skeptical audience. Berry Gordy’s solution was to have her start singing from off-stage so that those in attendance would admire her voice before being confronted with the color of her skin. It worked, and her whiteness became a non-issue for that crowd.

In addition to race politics, label politics are a particularly thorny issue for Motown. Gordy’s selective promotional push for the performers at his music factory certainly had an impact on Clark’s career and that of many others throughout the label’s history. Add to that a backbiting alternative biography of Clark in which she’s a label receptionist and rumors about the effect of her personal relationship with Gordy, and it seems that Clark fought and continues to face an uphill climb towards being acknowledged as a worthy artist. However, to revisit Clark’s 1967 Motown release Soul Sounds is to recognize the versatility of her instrument and the important niche she represents within the sound of young America. The verses on “Born to Love You Baby” flirt with the sounds of bossa nova lounge. “Love’s Gone Bad”, on the other hand, is a stomping blues-rock throw-down that powerfully exorcises the titular bad love and evokes Janis Joplin. Clark’s relatively faithful take on the Beatles’ “Got to Get You into My Life” showcases the interpretive dexterity of her voice as it rivals the punch of the horn arrangement.

But there’s no better moment than “If You Should Walk Away”, a Motown ballad written by Gordy and Frank Wilson that was never released as a single. On this number, Clark departs from the speak-singing delivery she uses in many places on the album (most markedly on “I Want to Go Back There Again”, co-written by Clark and Gordy). The opening phrase of “If You Should Walk Away” finds Clark tapping into a smooth section of her range akin to Karen Carpenter’s alto. As the song develops, the oft-cited Dusty Springfield comparison comes into view as Clark adds an edge that fits the song’s narrative about fidelity and strained relationships. This tension and release are also present in the downbeat-driven instrumentation, which breaks occasionally into acoustic guitar and auxiliary percussion interludes. These seem like unnecessary pop gestures that interrupt the sultry sway of the song, but even they bloom into a dynamic, string-enhanced breakdown just past the two-minute mark. Throughout, Clark exhibits her expert control and soulful realization of the material.

The sequencing of Soul Sounds somewhat undermines the impact of the song, following it up with the comparatively inconsequential “Whisper You Love Me Boy”. As such, I’ll allow that “If You Should Walk Away” is an excellent candidate for standalone discovery in the mp3 era. This would-be single is an ideal gateway into the many pleasures of Chris Clark and her soul sounds. Thomas Britt



The Mynah Birds, “It’s My Time” (1966)

If you and I were chatting about music in a bar and I were to tell you that, at one point, Neil Young and Rick James were in a band together on the Motown label, you would probably walk away thinking I was nuts.

But alas, if you dig deep enough into the depths of the legacy of Berry Gordy’s Hitsville USA, you will discover the story of the Mynah Birds, the very first white band signed to Motown. Formed in Toronto, Onatrio in the mid-’60s, the Mynah Birds were primarily a vehicle for the then-teenage James, who went by the name Ricky Matthews, along with a rotating cast of musicians that, at some point or another, included Young on guitar, Bruce Palmer (Young’s future bandmate in Buffalo Springfield) on bass, Goldie McJohn of Steppenwolf on keyboards, and even folk-rock hero Bruce Cockburn.

According to Young in an interview with author Jimmy McDonough in Young’s excellent biography Shakey, James at the time aimed to be the black Mick Jagger rather than the funk demigod he grew into during the ‘70s and ‘80s. “Ricky was great,” he stated. “He was a little touchy, dominating—but a good guy. Had a lot of talent. Really want to make it bad… Ricky was the frontman. He’s out there doin’ all that shit and I was back there playin’ a little rhythm, a little lead, groovin’ along with my bro Bruce. We were havin’ a good time. Rick James was really into the Stones. ‘Get Off My Cloud’, ‘Satisfaction’, ‘Can I Get a Witness’, all these songs we used to do. We got more and more into how cool the Stones were. How simple they were and how cool it was.”

The Young-Palmer incarnation of the Mynah Birds was the one that got signed to Motown, who funded them studio time where they recorded an album’s worth of material. However, only one proper single, “It’s My Time” b/w “Go on and Cry”, was assigned a catalog number and slated for release. Plans, however, that were shelved after James was arrested for deserting the U.S. Navy, and forced to serve a tour of duty, which, in turn, caused the Mynah Birds to dissolve shortly thereafter. Although there are bootlegs of Mynah Birds material out there on the Internet for savage Neil Young orRick James completists to grab, “It’s My Time” and “Go on and Cry” were eventually released officially on the 2006 box set The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 6: 1966. Ron Hart



Diana Ross, Baby It’s Me (1977)

In 1976, Billboard crowned Diana Ross “Entertainer of the Century”. It was a well-earned coronation. Just six years after leaving the Supremes, Ross had established herself as a formidable talent with a career that spanned records, film, television, and the Broadway stage. Amidst four chart-topping singles, Grammy and Oscar nominations, and a Tony Award for An Evening with Diana Ross, Ross released no less than a dozen albums between 1970 and 1977. Motown ensured that their top-selling female artist remained prolific even as she raised her three young daughters, Rhonda, Tracee, and Chudney.

However, Motown’s saturation of Diana Ross product—an average two album per year release schedule—buried some of the singer’s finest recordings. One of those albums, Baby It’s Me was sandwiched between the double live album An Evening with Diana Ross (1977) and Ross (1978), an odds and sods collection of new and previously recorded material. Like many of the albums Ross recorded in the 1970s, it deserves to be rediscovered.

Produced by studio wunderkind Richard Perry, Baby It’s Me beckoned listeners to the boudoir. Ross’ come-hither gaze on the album cover was an appropriate preamble to the music. “We wanted to make a record people could make love to,” Perry even disclosed to Ben Fong-Torres in Rolling Stone. Indeed, the songs on Baby It’s Me were ideal for “shadow dancing” in a razzle-dazzle sort of way.

Musically, the album contained a pastiche of pristinely orchestrated pop-soul confections. It also marked the full transition from the breathy, ingénue-like quality of Ross’ singing voice to a more mature and stronger tone. Ensconced at Studio 55 in Los Angeles during the summer of 1977, Perry maximized this newfound stridency. “You Got It” symbolizes the particular quality that characterizes the album: Perry’s stylized yet appealing pop and the cut-glass timbre of Ross’ voice. Her exuberant intonation of “got” defines the ecstasy of romantic love, and thus, the theme of Baby It’s Me.

The album is a treasure trove of irresistible tracks. “All Night Lover”, a glitzy tribute to the Holland-Dozier-Holland productions Ross recorded with the Supremes, echoes both “Where Did Our Love Go” and “I Hear a Symphony”. Though “All Night Lover” shares much in common with the classic sound of the Supremes, lyrics like “Renew me, do me” distinguish Ross—a sexy, classy woman—from the cooing 20-year old version of herself.

“Top of the World” and “Gettin’ Ready for Love”, which was the only single from the album to crack the Top 40 pop charts, were sweeping, buoyant three-minute odes to the stirring sensations of romantic love. The gorgeous “Come in from the Rain” and “Confide in Me”, each co-written by Melissa Manchester, disguised seduction as a seemingly innocuous invitation, while a cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Too Shy to Say” embellished the sweetness of the original with a tinge of melodrama. The title cut is the wild card of the bunch, a track that could only be described as funk-lite burlesque but, nonetheless, bewitching.

To simply dismiss the album as “glossy”, which it was upon its release, is to miss out on its numerable charms. (The only truly disposable contrivance is “Your Love Is So Good for Me”, a disco excursion that goes nowhere.) The production might be as slick as Ross’ coif but it’s just as alluring. No one will mistake Ross singing “The Same Love That Made Me Laugh” for Bill Withers, but hearing her navigate the song’s maze of heartache with that distinctive wail of hers summons its own kind of intoxication. During the last 45 seconds of the song, when the 4/4 beat suspends briefly, Ross cries wordlessly against the rhythm section. One can visualize the mascara running down her cheeks, her lipstick still glistening. The moment is executed perfectly under Perry’s direction, of course, but it’s beguiling just the same.

While Baby It’s Me vanished from circulation years ago (used CDs fetch upwards of $100), it’s well worth filing through the used album crates to hear how it captures a significant moment in the career of one of Motown’s most legendary artists. Christian John Wikane
[Edited 1/31/09 20:43pm]
[Edited 1/31/09 20:43pm]

What's Going On: Marvin Gaye's Liberation from the Motown Sound

[29 January 2009]

When Obie Benson of the Four Tops brought him a song he had co-written with Al Cleveland, Marvin Gaye found something that had reflected the way he had been feeling ever since Tammi Terrell's death -- anger, sadness, and disillusionment about his friend's death and the chaotic world around him.

by Charles Moss

Berry Gordy, Jr., head of the Motown Record Corporation, ran a tight ship. As much as the music was the soul of the business, the business was the soul of the music. From 1961 to 1971, Motown had 110 Top Ten hits. Artists such as Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Stevie Wonder, the Jackson Five, and the Supremes contributed to the label’s success. It was Marvin Gaye, though, who had become Motown’s number-one male recording artist in the 1960s.

Motown’s success was built upon a certain musical foundation. “The Motown Sound”, as it was officially called and trademarked, was a brand of soul music with a distinctive pop music influence. It included several signature elements ranging from prominent electric basslines to the use of various orchestral sections and a gospel-style singing treatment with a lead and back-up singers.

As much as Gaye had helped develop and popularize this sound, he began to feel stagnant in his musical role at Motown. By the late ‘60s, Gordy’s assembly line-like production took a toll on the artist.

Though he had recorded plenty of duets throughout the decade with other leading female artists at Motown (Mary Wells and Kim Weston, most notably), it was his work with Tammi Terrell that proved to be the most powerful. Songs like “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”, “Your Precious Love”, and “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing” defined the famous duo’s relationship; at least, that was the rumor.

When Terrell collapsed into Gaye’s arms during a concert in 1967, it was the beginning of a three-year bout with a brain tumor, resulting in her death in 1970. Gaye had watched his friend slowly wither away. When she died, it sent him spiraling into a deep depression. He refused to record or perform and spent most of the time alone, confined to his home.

Terrell’s death, however, would become something of a catalyst for Gaye’s artistic reinvention. Through television news broadcasts, Gaye saw the racial, political, and social problems that were plaguing the world, manifestations from the explosion of political and social activism that took place during the late ‘60s. As he wallowed in his seclusion, Gaye read letters from his brother Frankie serving in the Vietnam War. They described the confusion and frustration he and other soldiers felt fighting in a war that had no just cause. Many black soldiers at the time felt doubly conflicted, drafted to fight and die for a country that refused to accept them because of the color of their skin. These observations, along with the loss of Terrell, motivated Gaye to question his role in the world and at Motown.

Gordy set a high standard for his musicians and singers at Motown and was strict about quality control. For those artists who desired a bigger role within the music recording process, this meant limited creativity beyond the prescribed Motown Sound. Gaye, on the other hand, had an ever-growing desire to fully produce his music. Though he often collaborated with his producers and other musicians, offering suggestions on how to improve the songs, he yearned for the creative control that the role of producer would entitle him.

When Obie Benson of the Four Tops brought Gaye a song he had co-written with Al Cleveland, a songwriter at Motown, he found something that had reflected the way he had been feeling ever since Terrell’s death—anger, sadness, and disillusionment about his friend’s death and the chaotic world around him. After Gaye read the lyrics to “What’s Going On”, Benson urged Gaye to record the song himself. Upon agreement, Gaye collaborated with the two songwriters and eventually took complete creative control of the song’s production.

“What’s Going On” was recorded in Motown’s Studio A on June 1, 1970. Gaye enlisted Motown’s now-famous studio musicians, the Funk Brothers, to record his altered version of Benson’s song. But instead of hanging back in the control room, as most producers do, Gaye intermingled with the musicians, playing piano and creating new sounds. He brought in Chet Forest, who was known for his experience in the realm of the big band genre, to assist with the musical arrangement, as well as an assortment of percussionists playing everything from conga to woodblocks. Gaye even beat on a cardboard box with a pair of drumsticks to create a more hollow percussion sound. The result was unlike anything else in the Motown catalog.



Gordy refused to release it. Claiming the song was too political and too weird to be released as a Motown single, he was convinced the song would never become a hit. After all, it didn’t fit into the Motown Sound formula. Gaye, in response, refused to record any more songs for Motown until the company released it as a single. Eventually, Gordy gave in and the song “What’s Going On” was released in January 1971.

The finished product was a mix of Gaye’s intuitive genius, sheer stubbornness, and happy accidents. The first was the accidental recording of an alto sax warm-up. It happened to be just the sound Gaye was looking for as the song’s introduction. The second was the accidental mono playback of a two-track tape, each with a different vocal recording. The two tracks were played at the same time instead of separately for comparison purposes as Gaye had originally requested. Gaye liked what he heard so much that he used this technique as a trademark of his music.

Instead of the usual three back-up singers Motown often required, Gaye enlisted a background chorus to support his own soul-dripping voice as he walked around the studio, mike in hand, taking in as much of the magic in the room as he could. When it was released, the single quickly rose to the top of the charts. Gordy immediately called on Gaye for an accompanying album.

Though Gaye had an idea of what he wanted for the rest of the album, he wasn’t anywhere near finished writing the remaining songs for it. With the help of Benson, Cleveland, and a few other Motown songwriters, Gaye finished writing the other eight songs, enough for a complete album. After the initial recording, arranger David Van DePitte helped Gaye take the separate pieces of voice, instruments, and studio effects and compile them into a consistent and revolutionary album full of beauty and concept.

The songs of What’s Going On are told from the point of view of a black soldier returning home from fighting in a white man’s war. It is an unrecognizable America, filled with racial violence and uprisings, political strife and protests. The album is a question-inducing commentary about change, love, and hate.

As songs such as “Save the Children”, “Flyin’ High (In the Friendly Sky)”, and “What’s Happening, Brother” seamlessly flow together as one musical journey, they describe much more than falling in love, hanging on to love or losing love. In fact, many of them aren’t about love at all, at least not the romantic kind of love that Gaye had so often sung about in Motown’s earlier days. The songs on this album describe a realistically bleak world in which death and violence occurs but where hope hangs on—but just barely. The album begs the question, “Who really cares?” It was a complete slap in the face to the pre-packaged feel-good vibes of Gordy’s Motown Sound.

The cover of the album is a starkly lit close-up of a bearded Gaye wearing a black vinyl raincoat in the rain. His semi-smiling face stares toward the distance; a look of subtle confidence perfectly captures the tone of the album, but even more so, the way Gaye felt while making it. It was a dramatically different piece of cover art for Motown, much different than the superficial poses so characteristic of Motown’s usual material. It was a simple yet powerful image so pure that it exposed the truth in Gaye’s eye, the truth that couldn’t be ignored. Gaye had found himself and had set himself free.

The album produced two more hit singles, “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” and “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)”. Instead of quickly fading away as Motown albums often did, What’s Going On stayed on the charts for over a year and sold over two million copies by the end of 1972. It was not only the first Motown album to list its session musicians—the Funk Brothers—in the liner notes, but it was also the first Motown album that could not be simply categorized as “soul” or “R&B”.

Though later songs such as “Let’s Get It On” and “Sexual Healing” have defined Gaye as a sex-inducing, sultry-dipped crooner for millions of horny men, his album What’s Going On offered a truer definition of Gaye—the musical genius and revolutionary who broke free from the Motown Sound.
[Edited 1/31/09 20:44pm]

The Miracles

Twirling the Dial: My Motown Memories

by Bill Gibron

Short Ends & Leader Editor

[28 January 2009]
For those of us in tune with the sounds of the genre-redefining decade, a transistor radio was the seminal social sidekick. We loved listening to that little mono wonder, its tiny shrill speaker sparking a hundred journeys directly into the center of our mind.

As a kid growing up in the 1960s, it was the most coveted accessory you could own. No, not a pair of fashionable Foster Grant sunglasses, or a slick chopper-style bicycle with plastic fringe on the handle bars and a leopard print banana seat (guilty as charged). For those of us in tune with the sounds of the genre-redefining decade, a transistor radio was the seminal social sidekick. We loved listening to that little mono wonder, its tiny shrill speaker sparking a hundred journeys directly into the center of our mind. In conjunction with a weekly trip down to Sears to pick up the latest must-own 45s (always stocked per Billboard‘s Top 40) and your parents’ permission to use the massive console stereo—complete with auto tone arm and “continuous play” spindle—a child had endless sonic opportunities to explore. But you had to have that wireless device first. I’ll never forget the joy upon receiving my first one.

Growing up in Chicago had its own unusual aural perks—the primary one being the gig-normous mobile hit parade known as WLS. With its ample supply of AM delights, every hour was a refresher course in the latest supersonic song stylings. There was the Beatles followed up by the Mamas and the Papas, a smidgen of the Strawberry Alarm Clock immediately buttressed up against a classic bit of Miss Aretha Franklin. In one hour you literally hear every significant pop culture cut imaginable. While it argued for its place as the vanguard of commercial music, WLS was just like any all powerful media outlet. It set the tone. It determined the buzz. If it loved an artist or particular group, you heard their latest release in endless, almost omnipresent rotation. If they didn’t like you, or failed to get enough audience response to your latest outing, a particular track could disappear faster than a freak flag at a Mayor Daley rally.

I was doubly lucky in that my father coached for the Monsters of the Midway themselves, the Chicago Bears. As a result, my household was an unusually racially integrated place, always mindful of what was happening on the city’s South Side. My father loved all aspects of black heritage, especially the food, and I’ll never forget the arguments he had with my mother over the proper way to cook a sweet potato pie (being from the South, she thought she was right...). With lonely players far from home taking up residence in our living room on a weekly basis, there was always diversity at the dinner table. And on one of those fateful visits, a particularly imposing lineman grabbed my trusty transistor, swung the dial directly past the megawatt WLS, and in a single signal conversion, forever changed my view of ‘60s music.

Now I was no dummy. I had heard of Motown. Whenever the Supremes or the Four Tops made their way onto Ed Sullivan’s “really big” stage, I would scoot up toward the TV and watch in rapt pop-soul attention. If any other artists from Hitsville USA had a single in the Top 40, my paper sack from Sears would almost always contain their wax. But learning that there was an entire station dedicated to music like this completely blew my little Caucasian kid mind. As we sat there listening to the latest offering from Marvin Gaye or the Temptations, it was like a gap had been bridged in my upbringing. With my trusty felt marker, I placed a recognizable red mark over my new favorite station. That the name escapes my instant recall today is not some heresy on my part. It took a great deal of mental archeology and a trip through Google to remember WLS. Eventually, I discovered the other important call sign: WVON.


Jr. Walker

Because of the communal feeling within the team, everybody appeared to respect each other’s taste. In the locker room, it was always a battle between LS and VON, with each side racking up significant wins. During those intense battle royales, each side would literally sing their favorite song to suggest the next turn of the dial. I was personally witness to several Hall of Fame names belting out off-key versions of Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)”, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas’ “Nowhere to Hide”, and most memorably, a high-pitch falsetto take on “The Tracks of My Tears”. Oddly enough, the one song that seemed to bring both sides together was the sensational Smokey Robinson and the Miracles number “The Tears of a Clown”. From the opening orchestral swirl to the fantastic backbeat, that particular tune, no matter the station playing it, got everyone up and dancing.

As time progressed and AM gave way to FM, my memories of WLS and WVON remained forever linked to the Motor City’s main musical export. Even today, when a classic Motown track comes up on my iPod or a satellite radio channel, I am instantly whisked back to a time when music knew no specific boundaries, when all parties could dance in the street and easily embrace the sounds coming out of a tinny PA style speaker in Soldier’s Field. Sure, it now seems horribly naïve, and knowing what I know today, there were hundreds of underlying issues involving the Bears that I had little or no experience with (they were the first team to integrate their rooming lists, using position, not ethnicity, as a means of making such a determination). But I will never forget the night I met up with the “real” sound of Chicago by way of Detroit. It turned my transistor radio from something I loved into an indispensible part of my life—and Motown has stayed there ever since.
[Edited 1/31/09 20:45pm]
[Edited 1/31/09 20:45pm]

Stevie Wonder & the Funk Brothers

These Are the Breaks: The Motown Sound's Influence on Hip-Hop Sampling

by John Bohannon

[28 January 2009]

For any influential group in the hip-hop game, specifically in the early 1990s, Motown's stamp of approval and its variety of subsidiaries were undeniably influential.

Talking about the art of sampling without including Motown is like talking about soul music without Otis Redding or rock ‘n’ roll without Elvis—it just doesn’t quite complete the puzzle. The house that Berry Gordy built has been integral to the conception of hip-hop, its implementation of sampling, and the growth patterns of a music that advanced the urban streets of New York and slowly but surely took over the streets of the world.

While sampling has held its niche in the underground of hip-hop, legal problems have forced it out to the forefront, unless an artist with stature like Kanye West or Q-Tip takes the time to get his samples cleared. For any influential group in the hip-hop game, specifically in the early 1990s, Motown’s stamp of approval and its variety of subsidiaries were undeniably influential. Everyone from alternative groups such as A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul, to critical darlings like Common and the Roots, to mainstreamers like Tupac and Biggie have all had their hands in Hitsville U.S.A. This is partly due to the volume of records Gordy’s empire was pressing by the late ‘60s—enough for every beat digger to get his fair share of obscure breaks.

Although said obscure breaks often dominate, some of Motown’s best sellers would go on to provide the foundation for some of the most well known breaks. If it was a big seller the first time around, might as well try it again, right? The originators of mainstream hip-hop, Run DMC, found chops in the Temptations’ classic “Papa Was a Rolling Stone”, while Public Enemy used some of the band’s lesser known cuts, such as “Psychedelic Shack” and “I Can’t Get Next to You”. There are a number of reasons why these prominent hip-hop artists found comfort in the grooves of the Motown sound.

For one, Motown always stuck to the K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid) philosophy. One of the most important aspects of a legendary break comes from its ability to be used in repetition; if it becomes too complex, then it is less likely to work its way into the mind of its listeners. A strong backbeat begets an optimum break, and Motown had strong backbeats in spades. The Motown Sound always revolved around the backbeat of drummers like William “Benny” Benjamin, Richard “Pistol” Allen, and Uriel Jones to carry everything else forward, and it was typically accented by Jack Ashford’s tambourine and the rhythmic basslines carried by the legendary index finger of James Jamerson.

The collective of musicians known as the Funk Brothers forever changed the face of music up until Motown’s move from Detroit to Los Angeles in the early ‘70s. Both throughout their heyday and through the art of sampling, the Funk Brothers’ style of layering several guitar lines atop a syncopated drummer affords their records a sound unlike anyone else’s. When sampling drums, the feel and volume are of utmost importance—this is why John Bonham has always been one of the legendary sampled drummers. Though Benjamin, Allen, and Jones didn’t pound the kit, they played it with a pure finesse that, when syncopated with an overdub of the same break, truly comes to life. For example, the drums on the Four Tops’ classic “Reach Out I’ll Be There” are crisp and at the front of the mix, something that legendary producer Norman Whitfield had a golden ear for.

The orchestral arrangements used to elaborate many of the classics on Motown became another backbone in the hip-hop sound. Providing atmospheres to a beat unlike any guitar or bass could ever achieve, the sweet sound of strings layered behind thick beats led an entire new generation of hip-hoppers to different sonic territory. Elements like the string arrangements on Motown records, the horn arrangements that followed James Brown, and the sparseness found in jazz contemporaries such as Miles Davis, Charlie Mingus, and Sonny Rollins helped put hip-hop on a new scale. It allowed the beats to take on a life of their own, creating atmospheres to get lost in behind the lyrics. This may have been what opened up a world of beat records and gave labels like Stones Throw a lifelong supply of influence. It was about getting past drums alone and into a world of atmospheres where the beats no longer needed lyrics to be a creative force.

While we could go into a book-long discussion on the quintessential samples used by artists of Motown songs and artists, that could become irrelevant to a certain extent. What’s important to realize is how the aesthetic territory explored by the Funk Brothers, Whitfield, Gordy, and the wonderful recording artists for the beloved Detroit label and its subsidiaries influenced the aesthetic process in the world of sampling. The sonic territory explored in the Motown lab is a cornerstone in the similar territory explored decades later by a new generation of African-American innovators. For one, the late J Dilla, producer of classics by A Tribe Called Quest, the Pharcyde, and countless other underground icons, is a man of Detroit blood and holds the sounds of Motown near and dear to his heart and sound. It may not have been his samples per say, but his aesthetic approach is very similar to that of the Motown Sound. His beats have always been based on the K.I.S.S. method, and his drums always crisp (even when they were raw-sounding drums).

Motown will forever stand on its own as a timeless entity in the realm of popular music. For a younger generation, knowing about Gordy’s legacy may not be at the top of one’s priority list. But for a generation of hip-hoppers that have been exposed to the music of Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, Stevie Wonder, et al through a new styling of music suited to their tastes, the sound of the cut-up beat is one that sends them headlong into a world of wax. Through this, they are exposed to a sound unlike any other, a sound that is gracing the radio each and every day and staying relevant through a new medium—one method sustaining another.
[Edited 1/31/09 20:46pm]

Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier in the mid-1960s

Manufacturing Motown

by Vince Carducci

Like the nameplates on the auto industry's productive output, Motown's headline acts were brand identities under which cultural commodities were sold.

For kids like me growing up in the 1960s in a working-class suburb of Detroit, the music of Motown was more than just something you tuned into while flipping through the radio dial. It was a source of major civic pride—“The Sound of Young of America” emanating from the Motor City to rule the national airwaves like the muscle cars that reigned on streets like Woodward Avenue, the main drag that bisects the metropolitan area from the foot of the Detroit River downtown up to the city of Pontiac 20 miles to the north.

Running through the various hit songs were the distinctive basslines, precise guitar chords, and solid percussion, instrumental and vocal fills that helped to define the Motown sound. Motown Records was literally a hit factory and it operated on the same assembly-line principles that guided the automotive plants where hundreds of thousands Detroiters, black and white, first staked their claim to a piece of the American Dream. Like the nameplates on the auto industry’s productive output, Motown’s headline acts were brand identities under which cultural commodities were sold. Underneath it all from the very beginning was the powerful drive train of a group of studio musicians known as the Funk Brothers, led by pianist Earl Van Dyke and anchored by master bassist James Jamerson. During Motown’s 1960s heyday, they played on more #1 hit singles than Elvis, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles combined.

Italian social theorist and legendary jailbird Antonio Gramsci dubbed the regime of modern industrial capitalism “Fordism”, after the systems and policies implemented early in the 20th century by Henry Ford at the company that at least for now still bears his name. The golden age of Fordism was the 1950s and 1960s. It was the period of widespread prosperity in America following what sociologist Daniel Bell termed “The Treaty of Detroit”, the détente between management and workers written into the UAW’s 1950 contract with American automobile manufacturers. And it’s no accident that the evolution of Motown followed the fate of that industry, which has ruled the company town known as Detroit for more than a century.

Motown Records founder Barry Gordy, Jr. learned directly from the master. After washing out as the owner of a record store specializing in jazz, in the mid-’50s he briefly worked on the line at the Ford Wayne Assembly Plant. (Still in operation, it’s where the Focus is currently assembled. In Gordy’s day it was dedicated to the much more upscale Lincoln-Mercury sedan.) Besides recognizing the dim prospects of ever doing anything great while functioning as a cog in a gigantic machine designed to harvest every last drop of his labor (along with that of the legions of drones who anonymously toiled their lives away before and after him), Gordy absorbed the two central principles of Fordist production he would apply to great effect at Motown.


The Funk Brothers in 1966

The first of these is vertical integration, the consolidated management control of all aspects of production. The epitome was the Ford Motor Company Rouge Plant, where raw materials were delivered to the sprawling manufacturing complex, still the world’s largest, processed and spit out the other end as finished automobiles. By the same token, Gordy espoused a business philosophy of “Create, Make, Sell”. Gordy, and soon others on staff, wrote, produced, and recorded songs, published by Motown’s own Jobete Music, in the company studio at Hitsville USA. Motown pressed its own records, designed and printed the jackets and sleeves, and managed all inventory, distribution, and billing. Other Motown units directed product placement, airplay, promotions, and advertising. Another subsidiary, International Talent Management, Inc., handled all of the acts, including booking appearances and directing choreography for all performances, designing costumes, and even providing life-skills training for performer-employees in such things as etiquette, diction, and personal grooming. Motown’s so-called Charm School, where “civilizing” habits were taught, was in essence a knockoff of Ford’s dreaded Sociology Department, which monitored the company’s generally immigrant workforce to ensure “good behavior” in the plant and at home.

The “Create, Make, Sell” philosophy also embodied the other core Fordist principle, namely, the division of labor that strictly assigned each employee and operating unit a specific task in the production process. In his autobiography, Temptations lead singer Otis Williams observed: “Artists performed, writers wrote, producers produced.” In the 1960s these lines were rarely crossed, the exception being Smokey Robinson, the only performer to also write his own hit songs and the only one to become a corporate executive. Group names were routinely changed upon signing to make them more marketable (i.e., less R&B “ethnic"). Thus the Primettes became the Supremes and the Matadors the Miracles. The Funk Brothers were often called into the studio to lay down tracks for songs that weren’t finished with lyrics and vocals to be substituted for instrumentals down the line. A separate process, product evaluation, would determine which songs would be released. Another automotive tie-in is that songs would be vetted by playing them through small inexpensive one-way speakers, rather than studio monitors with separate tweeters and woofers, to test for optimum sound reproduction over car and transistor radios, which at the time were primarily tuned to the lower-fidelity AM band.

Car companies use different brands to target products for different consumer segments. In the same way, Motown maintained a portfolio of labels to appeal to different listeners. The flagship Motown plus Tamla and Gordy were the labels for crossover records aimed at the mass market. The Soul label was reserved for more “black” R&B product, like one of my favorites, Jr. Walker and the All Stars. (In high school, I played tenor sax in a blue-eyed soul cover band. Among my big moments every gig was to wail on the one-note solo of “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg”.) Black Forum presented spoken word records, typically with inspirational themes of black pride. African jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela’s Chisa Records was affiliated with Motown for a while and he covered the Motown classic, “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”, for his first record, The Reconstruction of Hugh Masekela, released as part of the relationship. Motown even appealed to directly white audiences through Rare Earth Records, featuring extended-jam versions of corporate hits like “I’m Ready” and “(I Know) I’m Losing You” performed by the all-white band after which the label was named.


The Supremes and Holland-Dozier-Holland in 1966

The late 1960s and early 1970s saw the first outsourcing of the American automobile industry with investments in the maquiladoras of Mexico, a transformation in manufacturing often referred to as post-Fordist to distinguish it from the previous production regime. So, too, did Motown begin its exit from the city that gave it its name, a mission accomplished in 1972 when its headquarters officially moved from Detroit to Los Angeles. As with the auto industry, Motown left many workers behind, including the Funk Brothers. Most of the Motown records of this period, including Stevie Wonder’s classics Music of My Mind, Talking Book, and Innervisions, featured freelance studio musicians recording at outsourced facilities in New York or LA (in addition to Wonder’s multi-instrumental talents). The exception was Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, the first Motown record for which the Funk Brothers received liner-note credit and generally considered the greatest soul album ever made.

With the onset of digital music in the 1980s, Motown again followed the evolution of global capitalism, in this case in the transition from the industrial to the informational economy. In 1988, Gordy sold Motown for $61 million, though he retained control of Jobete along with all of the publishing rights to its catalog. Like the rest of his fellow media moguls, Gordy’s main business became not making new product but wrenching every last cent of value from intellectual property he already owned. EMI eventually acquired Jobete Publishing, completing the deal in 2004 when it purchased the last 20 percent of the company from Gordy for $80 million. (By that measure the total value of the publishing concern would be $400 million.) The press release announcing the transaction noted that Gordy would stay on to help with “exploitation of the catalog”.

Exploiting the catalog has indeed been big business for Motown Records. Not long after the acquisition, the Funk Brothers were called back to active duty to back up pop-star hopefuls who performed selections from the Jobete song roster on American Idol. The top Motown hits have been firmly entrenched in continuous radio rotation since their original release. Reissues have proliferated with “definitive collections” of all the major groups available. The new 50th anniversary multiple-disc set is now on sale, following up on similar 40th, 30th, 25th, 20th, etc., anniversary volumes. There’s an abundance of song placements in movies, ads, and on TV. Ringtone downloads of your favorite Motown tunes can be had from the label’s website.

Motown suffered its initial decline in the 1970s with the triumph of the pop-artist auteur and the long-playing album format. But in the age of iTunes and the random shuffle, the catchy hook has returned as a killer app. In this regard, Motown has got legs. That’s more than you can say for America’s auto industry these days.
[Edited 1/31/09 20:47pm]

Smokey Robinson in 1963

Danger Heartbreak Dead Ahead

by Dave Heaton

PopMatters Associate Music Editor

If "I've Gotta Dance to Keep from Crying" could work as a slogan for Motown, the song itself works as both a dance song and a tearjerker.

If popular music sometimes seems like one continuous song about love, the Motown catalogue can seem especially so. Collectively, Motown’s singers and songwriters captured every side of a love relationship, beginning to end. And even if that subject matter is common in music, the Motown discography, taken as a whole, offers a big-picture view that catalogues life’s excitements and disappointments in specific, visceral ways. To read through a list of Motown song titles is to travel through shades and stages of the heart, from infatuation to love to utter despair, from “Whole Lot of Shakin’ in My Heart (Since I Met You)” to “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)” to “My World Is Empty Without You”. The songs of despair stand out as especially vivid for me. There are numerous classic songs that come to dark conclusions about life: “My Whole World Ended (The Moment You Left Me)”, “My Heart Can’t Take It No More”, “I’ve Lost Everything I’ve Ever Loved”. The Motown labels were full of singers and songwriters that were exceptionally skilled at capturing sadness.

My favorite of Motown’s sad songs are those that capture the feeling of desperation in a very specific way, like the Temptations’ “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)”, or those that phrase the pain in big, iconic ways, like Jimmy Ruffin’s song that asked the existential question, “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted?” Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ album track “I’ve Gotta Dance to Keep from Crying”, written by Holland-Dozier-Holland, is iconic in a similar way. For me it sums up the whole Motown enterprise, the way we were kept entertained but at the same time reminded of our deep fears and disappointments. It’s a party song, full of party tricks: a litany of dance styles, a get softer/get louder section. It starts with crowd noise and an invitation, “Gather round me swingers and friends / Help me forget my hurt again.” But it’s clear he’s not about to forget. She’s the only girl he ever loved. And she’s gone, forever. If the title could work as a slogan for Motown, the song itself works as both a dance song and a tearjerker. Robinson’s call for the music to get softer is the most touching part for me, his voice carrying more pain than he should be letting show at a party.

That’s part of Robinson’s genius, and why he exemplifies for me Motown’s status as great American chroniclers of sadness. The saddest songs, in general, are those about the inner loneliness and heartbreak that no one else knows about: the feelings we keep hidden. Robinson co-wrote and sang several, including two of the greatest: “The Tracks of My Tears” and “The Tears of a Clown”. If the former carries sadness in its sound, the latter takes more of the dancing-to-keep-from-crying route, with giddy music written partly by Stevie Wonder. In both songs, it’s Robinson’s voice that truly breaks the listener’s heart, the way he can capture excitement and regret in the same breath.

With its chorus, “The Tears of a Clown” shows some movement towards observational writing, away from a strictly first-person point of view. There may be a similar movement in Motown’s discography. Even when Motown artists sang of social issues, inner sadness still played a key role. Surely “What’s Going On” fits along this same continuum of documenting life’s heartbreaks, even as it looks outside the self, towards the world.
[Edited 1/31/09 20:47pm]

Dancing in the Street: Our 25 Favorite Motown Singles

[26 January 2009]
by PopMatters Staff

Editor’s note: Talk about an embarrassment of riches: the list of Motown’s commercially released singles over the course of the last 50 years (number ones, top tens, and non-charting efforts alike) is, quite simply, extraordinary. Surely it’s impossible to proclaim a mere 25 of them as “the greatest” for whatever reason(s), be they historical, cultural, musical, or otherwise. So, then, our list of 25 Motown singles is not meant to be interpreted as critical gospel, but more humbly as a list of our particular favorites, ranked alphabetically by artist name.

1. The Four Tops, “Bernadette” (1967)
Written by Holland-Dozier-Holland
Produced by Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier
Reached #4 on the pop charts

“Bernadette” isn’t Motown’s greatest single because it’s a nice song. In fact, it’s a downright ugly piece of chaos, with a narrator I can’t imagine and don’t willingly sympathize with, a choked-down fury, and a sort of explosion that I’m not convinced anyone involved with the song—not the Four Tops, not the Funk Brothers, and maybe not even songwriters Holland-Dozier-Holland—had a handle on.

But, oh, that bassline. Let’s pin the song down right there before everything goes crazy and the angry brother comes by and, let’s face it, someone gets punched. That bass part is James Jamerson, one of pop’s classic musicians, at his finest. He alternates between bounding, chaotic runs and relatively simple reinforcement of the chord progressions. It creates a steady and melodic propulsion to make this song churn while Levi Stubbs delivers his off-kilter, half-sung vocals. It makes “Bernadette” a pop song instead of a letter from behind a restraining order.

Because that’s what we’re really seeing, right? Levi Stubbs’ singer is just about losing it. He starts out like a true lover. It’s lovely, and maybe that pounding music’s just misleading. But the little paranoia starts to creep in. It’s flattering, really. She’s so amazing that there must be other guys eyeing her up. It’s that possessiveness that bespeaks a kind heart, acknowledging the slow looks that follow a beloved.

It keeps going. Or rather Stubbs’ derangement grows. We get that Bernadette’s being nudged into object status here, but it goes as far as “I want you because I need you to live”. A little scary, but all the belonging, pedestal-placing, and worshipping, and the controlling nature that calls others controlling: it’s typical. But Stubbs can’t leave it at that. He’s starting to crack up a little over it. Like he’s literally going to die if some bastard steals his woman away from him. His vocals grow shoutier and shoutier, more arhythmic. And the band pushes and pushes toward the ultimate cataclysm. There’s violence somewhere here.

Even worse than the looming fight is the inversion of pop: “For the only joy in life is to be loved.” It takes either some guts or some complete absence of inhibition to say that. Rock is at least at the animal sense to want to have sex; pop told us that being in love was the greatest high, part of the transcendent experience of two people coming together amid the cherry blossoms and finding an epic sweetness.

“Bernadette” tells us: “Love me or I die!”

It’s a pop song driven by pure fear. Not “Do you like me check yes no maybe” worry, and certainly not the precursor of a glamorized heartbreak, but heart-racing, adrenalin-laden fear. It’s a strange source for a pop hit.

And, yet, it’s hard not to believe in some other genuine emotion in there. Maybe it’s knowledge of the pop genre, or of the band that sang “Reach Out I’ll Be There”: this must be love. Maybe it’s the Funk Brothers in the groove or the sweet back-up harmonies. It could be Jamerson’s bassline again, with its frantic leaps even as it plunges down and down. There’s fear driven by and nearly concealing a love of some sort. It reaches a critical mess.

So what do we do with the song and its singer? “Bernadette” provides more than a character study of a controlling lover. There’s a core to this song that could be more disturbed than deviant, in its capturing of an element of the erotic experience, of jealousy and fear and desire and pride and even a sensible (if frightened and frightening) love. There’s a brute here that we say we don’t know.

And then the music stops. The vocals stop. There are two seconds of silence, of expectancy, of confusion, of choice. Of loss. Beyond thought and sound, before the only possible response, Stubbs coming back just short of a shout with “Bernadette”, the middle syllable suffocated, naming the woman, the object, the feeling. Stubbs expressing that mad, dark urge, desperate to win sympathy from both us and Bernadette, the cry irrelevant in the fade, and the conflicted swarm lingering. Justin Cober-Lake

2. The Four Tops, “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)” (1965)
Written by Holland-Dozier-Holland
Produced by Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier
Reached #1 on the pop charts

In 1965, the production team of Holland-Dozier-Holland crafted one of the finest, most influential singles in the history of popular music. From the sounds in Studio A of a piano stride, to the end of a baritone falsetto, all the way into the girl group laden harmonies, “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)” became the culmination of the techniques of the most prolific songwriting team’s hit-making factory. While most of his soulful counterparts were tenors, Levi Stubbs was a rarity with his low-register raspy voice that could knock a woman’s socks clean off. Perhaps this is what made him stand out among his peers, but also the entire group (consisting of Stubbs, Abdul Fakir, Renaldo Benson, Lawrence Payton, and the Adantes) was able to interpret Holland-Dozier-Holland’s songwriting beyond the surface and turn great songs at their infancy into classics over time. Only to be replaced on the charts by another huge hit at the time, the Byrds “Mr. Tambourine Man”, the Four Tops’ hit single held the number one position for a consecutive two weeks in the summer of ‘65.

1965 was a year of significant cultural upheaval—Malcolm X was assassinated, the Vietnam War was escalating, Dylan went electric and threw the folk world into an uproar, the Beatles took over the world by playing the first stadium show in New York—but it was songs like “I Can’t Help Myself” that provided relief from the hardships of life, and helped lead into an era that was all about the struggle for peace and letting loose. Although the Four Tops were not always the most album-oriented of the Motown bunch, their singles will forever be a testament to the faith Berry Gordy had in seven inches of wax. Moving 45 revolutions per minute, the Four Tops have moved their way history—proving that a song about a women’s love can be just as influential as any song grounded in politics and social commentary. John Bohannon

3. The Four Tops, “It’s the Same Old Song” (1965)
Written by Holland-Dozier-Holland
Produced by Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier
Reached #5 on the pop charts

The legend behind the creation of the Four Tops’ “It’s the Same Old Song” reads like a shining testament to the notion of Motown as the ultimate music factory, cranking out classic pop songs with all of the quality and precision of Detroit’s other famous industry. When the Tops scored their first #1 record with “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)” in June of 1965, the group’s former label, Columbia Records, rushed to capitalize on their newfound success by reissuing the early, unsuccessful Columbia single “Ain’t That Love”. Reportedly angered over the attempted cash-in, Berry Gordy ordered the group, along with the Holland-Dozier-Holland team, into the studio to produce a brand new Four Tops single to be ready for commercial release within 24 hours. By the end of the working day, “It’s the Same Old Song” had been written and recorded, with 1,500 copies of the record shipped out to DJs across the country the following afternoon.

With the title possibly even a wink and a nudge in reference to Holland-Dozier-Holland’s knack for unerringly duplicating their own formulas—note the song’s unmistakable melodic resemblance to not only “I Can’t Help Myself” but also the Supremes’ “Where Did Our Love Go?”—“It’s the Same Old Song” once again proved the unshakable success of the Motown assembly line, peaking at #5 on the charts. At the heart of this model of efficiency, though, remains a breathtakingly brilliant song, one that, if not the definitive staple of the Four Tops catalogue that “I Can’t Help Myself” has become, is arguably the greater artistic achievement. An overall more melodically complex and expansive composition, “It’s the Same Old Song” pushes much further into the realm of pop than the comparatively basic doo-wop-style vocal arrangements of “I Can’t Help Myself”. Front and center is an especially urgent, yearning lead performance by the invaluable Levi Stubbs, deftly maintaining the song’s fragile balance of wistfulness and heartbreak. “The melody keeps haunting me / Reminding me how in love we used to be,” he sings, a simple declaration of one of music’s most profound functions: the ability to encapsulate our memories more vibrantly, poetically, and succinctly than the actual truth of our histories ever possibly could. Jer Fairall

4. Marvin Gaye, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” (1968)
Written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong
Produced by Norman Whitfield
Reached #1 on the pop charts

So here’s the funny thing about Marvin Gaye’s version of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”, the song that would, until the release of the Jackson 5’s “I’ll Be There”, reign supreme as Motown’s all-time biggest hit: Berry Gordy didn’t like it. When Gaye’s Norman Whitfield-produced track reached Motown’s quality control department, in all its psych-paranoia glory, it was deemed unsuitable for release and subsequently shelved for over a year. Its replacement, Gaye’s “Your Unchanging Love”, was released as a single in July 1967, while “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” was handed over to Gladys Knight & the Pips, who took it to number one later that fall. When Gaye’s version was finally liberated from the vaults to be included as an album track on In the Groove, it blew up, trumping the album’s designated single, “You”, on the radio. Motown officially released the song as a single in October 1968; it outsold Knight’s version, quickly became Motown’s crowning commercial achievement, and went right to number one and stayed there for seven weeks.

“I Heard It Through the Grapevine” had a rough time getting off the ground in the first place. Whitfield’s first two passes, with Smokey Robinson & the Miracles and the Isley Brothers, were shot down. Gaye’s must have made an especially strong impression, albeit bad, because it went against the lighter grain of the Motown aesthetic—songs often sounded sunny even when they were sad. Indeed, Knight’s version (which Whitfield also produced) fits this if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it template, its gospel-pop format offering giddy opposition to the lyric. This track, however, is downright spooky, with Gaye’s vocal (deliberately arranged in a higher register) teetering between lovesickness and madness.

It’s got one of the greatest openings of any Motown single (of any single, for that matter), a calculated fog-burn that lifts cautiously. It’s like the band is on a stakeout. There’s hi-hat and organ, and then Jack Ashford’s tambourine, and then those snaking guitars that spurt from the ground and climb like vine growth. Listen to how restrained the Funk Brothers are on the entire track—they hold back, even when Gaye threatens to lose it, lurking somewhere in the singer’s shadow. Their pulse quickens during the instrumental break, but promptly returns to clenched-fist control when Gaye gets back behind the mic. The band here is a reflection of the lyric’s paranoia, pain, and humiliation, a quietly seething thing.

This track predicted the “psychedelic soul” music that Whitfield would pursue with the Temptations in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, which, coincidentally, is some of my favorite Motown music, dark and jammy and most certainly post-factory model in design. But it’s more notably the bridge between Gaye the honeyed, uplifting voice of “Pride and Joy” and “Stubborn Kind of Fellow”, and the conceptual social critic that Gaye would become with later projects like What’s Going On. And if one bridge could be the storage area for everything that’s great—erm, metaphorically speaking, ‘course—then this would be it. I’d like to stand there forever. Zeth Lundy

5. Marvin Gaye, “What’s Going On” (1971)
Written by Renaldo Benson, Al Cleveland, and Marvin Gaye
Produced by Marvin Gaye
Reached #2 on the pop charts

Recorded in 1970, but not released until the following year after Marvin Gaye threatened to quit recording for Motown, “What’s Going On” essentially marked a major shift at the label. Following the death of duet partner Tammi Terrell and in the midst of personal crises, Gaye began producing himself at Motown, an unusual step that, in this case, led to a classic new sound (through both skill and luck). The voice behind hits like “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)” and “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing” was suddenly turning dark and brooding, getting deep into a bleak atmosphere and letting out his social conscious. You can see why Berry Gordy was hesitant to release it. Gaye not only had stepped outside Motown’s factory system, but he had stepped outside traditional pop to fight the system (here taking on the Vietnam War most explicitly).

Gaye’s single helped open the way for other Motown artists to move in that direction, but let’s not exaggerate its importance in that area, especially given the success of previous releases like “War” and “Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World Is Today)”. What makes the song matter now is more how it sounds. That opening sax lick suggests something mature and maybe venturing into easy jazz, but the Funk Brothers put down a groove at once ethereal and dirty, driven by the mass of percussion. By the time the sax returns to prominence, it’s to cry along with Gaye, bolstering his “Mother, mother, mother”. The band couldn’t be much tighter, and yet the song sounds as if they’re about to come unhinged. The false fade-out is a bit of a poke at radio-friendly structures, but it’s a formal tie to the song’s emotion, demonstrating a plea that won’t go away. Gaye has seldom, if ever, expressed himself better, showing restraint through most of his singing but revealing the hurt and anger as needed. After a lucky discovery, there’s a bit of genius in the vocal production here, with Gaye’s voice all over the place, and the vocals doubled. The singing matches the band, being both a ghostly flight and a physical urge.

The song’s impact at the time was significant, spending plenty of time on the charts, helping Gaye and others feel out a new approach to R&B, and providing words for a troubled era. The impact hasn’t lessened. The artistry remains impressive, from the band’s playing to Gaye’s singing to the production of the whole piece to the arranging of so many disparate parts. It’s a track half-crazy and half-refined, a latent madman in the opera. But if the song wasn’t the first of its kind thematically, it remains the most powerful, attacking a violent system in each of its recurrences, and offering us a sublime consolation and catharsis in a difficult time. Justin Cober-Lake

6. Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” (1967)
Written by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson
Produced by Harvey Fuqua and Johnny Bristol
Reached #1 on the pop charts

At its most basic level, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” is a terribly catchy jingle with the classic Motown pop sound—the kind of song that, as Steve Harvey once eloquently put it, makes “your ass just lit up”. When it was released, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” became an instant hit. It was part of the continued success of Gaye and gave Terrell her first critical breakthrough. But “simple” songs are usually the ones with the most behind-the-scenes shockers and this song was no exception. The story of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” is almost apocryphal now. If you’ve seen footage of the duo performing the song together, their chemistry is undeniable. As Gaye and Terrell trade lines, the gut reaction is one of pure joy seeing two great singers really into the song and each other. But how many people know that Terrell was so overawed by the thought of singing with Gaye that her vocals were recorded earlier and then Gaye’s were overdubbed? It’s almost impossible to catch this, except in the third verse, when you can hear a couple of seconds of the overdub of Gaye’s vocals over Terrell’s.

From 1967 to 1969, Gaye recorded nearly a dozen duets with Terrell, who overcame her initial shyness about recording with him, and settled well into the role. A romantic relationship between the two was always denied although the song was written by an actual romantically-involved couple, Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson. Lyrically, the song evokes powerful images of resilience and dependence, but its magic is in its broad appeal. Did Ashford and Simpson write the song for each other as a gesture of their love or could it mean more? What about partners separated by distance? Recently broken-up lovers still caught up in their feelings towards each other? Best friends? Teammates? Or perhaps, as fitting the time, those separated by segregation?

That Terrell would collapse on stage into Gaye’s arms at a 1967 concert and die in 1970 at the age of 24 only added to the myth surrounding this song and make it a true coda to a promising career. Gaye was never the same either—he took a brief hiatus from music, tried his hand at professional sports, and when he did return to the charts, the message had change from the whimsical to the political. Such was the power of one song. Shyam K. Sriram

7. Thelma Houston, “Don’t Leave Me This Way” (1976)
Written by Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff, and Cary Gilbert
Produced by Hal Davis
Reached #1 on the pop charts

When Thelma Houston took on a modern classic by Harold and the Blue Notes, she created one of the most enduring anthems of the disco era. A riveting fusion of Houston’s gospel-inflected voice and Gamble & Huff’s haunting melody, it topped the pop, R&B, and disco charts in early 1977. A year later, Houston became the first female artist at Motown to win a Grammy when she prevailed in the Best R&B Performance, Female category for “Don’t Leave Me This Way”. Three decades later, Houston’s timeless recording was among the first songs selected for induction into the Dance Music Hall of Fame.

Why are we still dancing to this song today? It’s all in the build-up and release of Hal Davis’ galloping production. Houston’s voice is announced by a flourish of harp, entering from a musical space embodied by a keyboard that seems to glow. The strings signify the song’s Philly soul origins. When the drumbeat kicks in, Houston’s voice opens up but it’s tinged with ache and a somewhat erotic yearning. “I’ll surely miss / Your tender kiss / Don’t leave me this way”, she intones quietly before the background vocalists take the song into another stratosphere. “Ahhhhh, BABY!”, they shout. It’s arguably the defining moment of the song. In the chorus, Houston doesn’t beg her lover to stay, she commands him. After all, he started a fire in her soul and it’s burning out of control. All hell breaks loose once the tambourines turn up in the second half of the song and Houston’s hair-raising ad-libs elevate the song to an even more intense plane of emotional release.

Over the years, the full impact of the song’s power has dulled somewhat because of its ubiquity on budget compilations, cheesy retrospectives of the 1970s, misguided remixes, and the unfair notion that Houston was a one-hit wonder. Strip away those associations and try to listen with virgin ears. “Don’t Leave Me This Way” is an exquisite masterpiece, a stunning example of dance music as cathartic utility. Christian John Wikane

8. The Jackson 5, “I Want You Back” (1969)
Written and produced by the Corporation (Berry Gordy, Freddie Perren, Deke Richards, and Alphonzo Mizell)
Reached #1 on the pop charts

“I Want You Back” was the first big pop hit for the Jackson 5. It hit number one. So did their next three singles, all within the span of less than a year. This song was the start of a rolling, building superstardom, for the group and for Michael Jackson. In this song you can already hear him as a superstar, dynamic, but carrying no sense of all the twists and turns to come in his career and life. It all started here, as they say. Michael Jackson’s singing on the song is amazing for someone so young, but also for anyone. In the intersection of its youth and strength, his voice embodies the spirit of the song, which is a big, joyous, ecstatic feeling. The song is about regret, in a way, and does have a certain bittersweet quality, but whether from the youth of its characters or the protagonist’s giddy eagerness, it’s an excited determination that carries the day.

Listen to Michael Jackson shouting as the song fades, “I want you back”, as one last exclamation point, embodying the song’s assertiveness. It isn’t just the singing that makes the song. There’s the melodic bassline, the guitar, the piano, the strings, the layered backing vocals, the drums, and the superb melody. As with the Jackson 5’s next two number-one hits, “ABC” and “The Love You Save”, the song is the genius of the Corporation, the songwriting team of Freddie Perren, Alphonso Mizell, Berry Gordy, and Deke Richards. The four wrote, produced, and arranged the song, which has a remarkable number of moving parts that gel together naturally, beautifully. The opening piano trill, with the band then kicking in at once, offers one of those “hell yes!” moments of positive recognition. You hear it and are immediately swept up. It’s one of Motown’s, and pop music’s, most reliable dance-floor fillers, the proverbial song to make even the dead shake their weary bones. Dave Heaton

9. Martha & the Vandellas, “Jimmy Mack” (1967)
Written by Holland-Dozier-Holland
Produced by Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier
Reached #10 on the pop charts

Martha and the Vandella’s “Jimmy Mack” has that street corner doo-wop feel. Perhaps it’s the handclaps that start off the song and continue nonstop that gives the 45-rpm record that aura. Or maybe it’s the fact that there’s not a single note that’s hard to sing. Neither Martha Reeves nor any of the Vandellas ever has to stretch for a note. Or it could be the propulsive, insistent beat that just keeps things moving. Whatever the case, the song just begs to be sung along with.

Although the tune was recorded in 1964, Motown did not release “Jimmy Mack” until 1967, allegedly because of the Vietnam War. The lyrics, about a girl being wooed by another man while her loved one is away, were deemed inappropriate while soldiers were fighting abroad. However, the song was released during a time when more GIs were drafted and sent to ‘Nam because the war was less popular with the general public. The single received generous airplay on Armed Forces Radio as those stationed overseas could relate to the lyrics. “Jimmy Mack / When are you coming back?” was a question shared by both the soldiers and civilians.

“Jimmy Mack” was Martha and the Vandella’s last top ten pop hit and reached number one on Billboard’s R&B Singles chart. The song was written by Motown’s Holland-Dozier-Holland team, who wrote 25 number-one hits for the record company including five consecutive number one singles for the Supremes. While the legendary Funk Brothers provide instrumentation, the vocals are so prominent that the song could almost be sung a cappella without losing much of value. There’s a short sax solo and the drums are important for helping keep the beat, but basically the voices carry the tune.

This makes sense in terms of the song’s lyrical concerns. It’s about a boy trying to wear down a girl’s resistance to his advances through his sweet talk. You can tell his ploy is working by the strength of the plea she sings to her boyfriend. She’s “trying hard to be true” but Jimmy Mack “better hurry back” because she “can’t hold out very much longer”. The urgency of her voice makes it clear. If Jimmy Mack doesn’t arrive soon, he will be replaced by another in her affections. The vocals convey the power of language. The song “Jimmy Mack” shows the persuasiveness of words simply by the way Martha and the Vandellas sung it. Steven Horowitz

10. Martha & the Vandellas, “Dancing in the Street” (1964)
Written by Marvin Gaye, William “Mickey” Stevenson, and Ivy Jo Hunter
Produced by William “Mickey” Stevenson
Reached #2 on the pop charts

It’s hard not to hear the premiere single from Motown’s Martha & the Vandellas and not think of bigger things. After all, the opening of the 1964 smash begins with the line “Calling out around the world”. Talk about your international invites. One of Hitsville USA’s first global anthems, the shout-out to party arms was originally disguised as a ballad, composer William “Mickey” Stevenson trying to interest Marvin Gaye in the track by showing him an early, downbeat draft. The former Motown session drummer turned recording artist liked what he saw/heard, but thought it could be more “danceable”. With the help of some input from new songwriter Ivy Jo Hunter, and some arrangement guidance from Vandellas’ mentors Holland-Dozier-Holland (talk about a talent-packed production team!), the eventual version was ready to record. With Martha Reeves on lead, it took only two takes to nail.

It’s all there from the moment you hear the deafening drum intro and opening brass band trill. The track chugs along like an express party train to your feet, toes tapping as fingers pop in perpetual motion. Echo enhanced the outsized scope of the song, but it’s the undeniable jingle of the ever-present Motown tambourine (a true label trademark) that suggests a kind of full blown world fiesta. As Reeves intones the initial lines, her lower-register voice spouting out the sentiments, the rest of Motown’s sturdy house band (the infamous Funk Brothers) keep the groove locked in. At first, the song presents a standard early ‘60s idea: “Summer’s here and the time is right / For dancing in the street.” Reeves is convincing, offering the new “beat” that will get you sweatin’ in the hot rays of a July sun.

By the chorus, she has us convinced that there’s no other choice but to join in and shake a tail feather—and Berry Gordy and the gang will be there to provide the soundtrack: “All we need is music, sweet music / There’ll be music everywhere / There’ll be swingin’, swayin’ and records playin’ / And dancin’ in the street.”

Later, as the litany of locations is peeled off, it’s interesting to note the lack of cities outside the US. Reeves name checks Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and of course, the Motor City of Detroit. She even gets LA in. It’s only later, as the song fades out, that the singer starts broadening her horizons, though a vague reference to “across the ocean blue” hardly seems like the continental call out the lyrics suggest. All the while, the current crop of Vandellas (the names and number changed frequently) provides a melodious counterpoint.

Oddly enough, riots in ‘64 (Harlem) and ‘65 (the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts) found activists adopting the song as a symbol of group solidarity and philosophical empowerment. The call became one of action, and the suggestion that “every guy” should “grab a girl” was seen as an attempt at cultural unity. It’s only natural for a tune that started out small, but grew into something far more significant—and sensational. Bill Gibron

11. The Marvelettes, “Please Mr. Postman” (1961)
Written by Robert Bateman, Georgia Dobbins, William Garrett, Freddie Gorman, and Brian Holland
Produced by Brian Holland and Robert Bateman
Reached #1 on the pop charts

Hitting the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 11th, 1961, the Marvelettes’ “Please Mr. Postman” was the song that truly launched the Tamla/Motown sound. After all, it was the label’s first number one pop single, a recording that revolutionized American music and introduced the world to what would soon be recognized as a bona fide dynasty. From its opening shout of “Wait!” the song is nothing if not attention-grabbing, and it all starts with the track’s bare-bones rhythm section (courtesy of the Funk Brothers). There’s the ebullient stride piano, the thudding, thumping upright bass line, and—last but certainly not least—Marvin Gaye’s primitive, yet achingly restrained drums. And that’s before any consideration of the Marvelettes’ gorgeous background harmonies—the track’s most obvious doo-wop connection—which serves to provide the perfect foil to lead singer Gladys Horton’s raspy contralto.

And this is what really sells the track, Horton’s underlying toughness coming through despite the perfunctory politeness of the lyrics. While the singer’s main gift is a rough, gutsy tone, her impeccable articulation and phrasing are equally responsible for transforming every other word of the song into a hook. Years later, Karen Carpenter would approximate this treatment, yielding one of the finer parts of a passable yet typically edgeless cover version by the Carpenters (which still went to number one).

Over all, though, “Please Mr. Postman” is most significant as a rubric for subsequent girl groups—chiefly the more coquettish Supremes, who made good on their names as Motown juggernauts throughout the remainder of the 1960s. While the Marvelettes never did match the single’s success, their contribution to the earliest part of Motown’s storied golden era is nonetheless impossible to exaggerate. Any way you frame it, it’s a perennial classic to which modern pop still owes a substantial debt. Spencer Tricker

12. Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, “I Second That Emotion” (1967)
Written by William Robinson, Jr. and Al Cleveland
Produced by Smokey Robinson
Reached #4 on the pop charts

Motown’s greatest lyricist, Smokey Robinson outdid himself in the wordplay department with the title of this 1967 hit. The phrase, however, came from the song’s co-writer, Al Cleveland, when he and Robinson were out shopping at a Detroit department store. As Robinson was buying some pearls for his wife, he said to the saleslady, “I sure hope my wife likes them”, to which Cleveland replied, “I second that emotion.” Cleveland, of course, meant to say “I second that motion”, but much like Ringo Starr and his various “Tomorrow Never Knows"-isms, the flubbed line unintentionally became the impetus of a brilliant pop song. Cleveland and Robinson left the store and went back to the studio, where “I Second That Emotion” was born.

The idea that a misspoken line or pun can become the crux of a timeless pop song is part of what makes pop music so playful, so malleable, so in-the-moment: it is young enough to make these mistakes, yet quick-witted enough to turn those mistakes into its own language. Here that language is delivered within the familiar confines of Robinson’s fluffed-up falsetto, and buoyed by the bluesy guitar twines of Eddie Willis and others. “I Second That Emotion” is true pop about true love, about tossing aside the reservations and skepticisms, about going with your gut and your heart—a feeling that has been seconded, thirded, fourthed the world over. Zeth Lundy

13. Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, “The Tears of a Clown” (1970)
(Originally released in 1967 on album Make It Happen)
Written by Hank Cosby, William Robinson, Jr., and Stevie Wonder
Produced by Hank Cosby and Smokey Robinson
Reached #1 on the pop charts

“The Tears of a Clown” is essentially a sequel to “The Tracks of My Tears”, one that takes the slow-burning tragedy of its predecessor and replays it for laughs. The premise is the same: a man is outwardly convivial, inwardly shattered. Stevie Wonder and producer Hank Cosby delivered the unique carnival-esque instrumental track, with its giddy calliope riff, tightrope-trembling bassoon, and toppling acrobatic drums, to Smokey Robinson in 1968. Where most songwriters would hear merriment in the sonic circus, Robinson instead heard melancholy, the arm-twisting coerced happiness of social spectacles. Always an innovative lyricist, Robinson tops his usual off-rhymes ("public"/"subject") and seamlessly intricate phrases ("camouflage my sadness") with a bold Pagliacci reference, no doubt lost on many listeners. Never one to waste a good line, Robinson lifted “Just like Pagliacci did / I try to keep my sadness hid” from his own 1964 exploration of this motif, “My Smile Is Just a Frown (Turned Upside Down)”, a rarity pawned off on Carolyn Crawford. Once his lyrics were perfect, Robinson and his fellow Miracles cut some vocals, and promptly buried the track on 1968’s Make It Happen album, eclipsed by singles “More Love” and “The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage”.

Were it not for Robinson’s subsequent decision to retire from the Miracles, “Tears” might have languished in Motown album-cut obscurity. In light of Robinson’s dormancy, Motown, forever eager to milk its cash cow, was left scrambling for a fresh single, and “Tears” proved a wise and daring choice. Pagliacci, calliope, and all, it soared to number one in September 1970, and even coaxed Robinson backed into the band for a couple years.

“The Tears of a Clown” is a pinnacle of Robinson’s (and Motown’s) achievements. After 40 years, the record sounds like nothing before or since: even on a grocery store or fast-food sound system, it is immediately recognizable and reliably compelling. “Tears” is a blistering commentary on the public sphere’s emotional sanitization, how a man is forced to laugh when he’d rather be crying, simply because it’s socially acceptable. But without his beloved, the girl for whom he so flagrantly pines, life is one big joke he doesn’t find all that funny. Any signifier of joy—that calliope, that bassoon, even the background singers—seems to be taunting and mocking him, trivializing and undermining his sorrows. His ersatz mirth is a prison, and Robinson’s deceptively composed vocal is just part of that confining performance. For ultimately, the subtext of “Tears” is the similarity between clown and pop singer, how certain emotions must be summoned on demand, regardless of current cognitive state. But the song’s genius is that makes a performer’s predicament universal, acknowledging how human identity is ultimately a performance, and how the act of faking it is all too real. Charles A. Hohman

14. Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, “The Tracks of My Tears” (1965)
Written by Warren Moore, William Robinson, Jr., and Marvin Tarplin
Produced by Smokey Robinson
Reached #16 on the pop charts

One of Motown’s most perfect expressions of the sadness and regret beneath the surface of human behavior, “The Tracks of My Tears” establishes an indelible atmosphere in its opening seconds. A guitar gently plays part of the song’s melody, the drums kick in, and the Miracles sing a soft bed of sweet nothings. That creates a tone of both comfort and melancholy, a somber ease. The Miracles—assisted in the song by Motown’s legendary session band the Funk Brothers and, almost invisibly, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra—thus efficiently but elegantly set the score for the angelic and worldly voice of Smokey Robinson, making immortal a story of heartbreak, of watching ideal love slip away and struggling to maintain a smile. The song hits those emotions so precisely, within such a memorable tune, that it has remained one of Motown’s most beloved songs. That it has been performed by people as different from each other as Dolly Parton, Bryan Ferry, Soul Asylum, and Boyz II Men is a testament to the song’s universal qualities.

But the effectiveness of “The Tracks of My Tears”, the original recording, is also about mood and performance, about guitarist Marv Tarplin playing such a simple and evocative melody, about a few hits of a drum framing and emphasizing the feelings within the song, about the Miracles and Robinsion singing off each other. There’s a significant portion of the song where Robinson lets the Miracles finish his sentences, where they sing back and forth, building upon each other like jazz musicians would, in an improv jam. By the end of the song they’re singing excitedly together, and singing about loneliness. That would-be contrast is Motown’s legacy: the collective focus on individual pain. Under the rubric of Motown, so many people, remembered and forgotten, worked together to create music that reflected the inner emotions of individuals, and continues to resonate with listeners on that level. Dave Heaton

15. Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me” (1962)
Written and produced by Smokey Robinson
Reached #8 on the pop charts

With “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me”, Smokey Robinson proved what anyone who’s ever been in a complicated relationship already suspected—that love and hate aren’t mutually exclusive. Few people could truthfully say they haven’t felt the combination of longing and frustration that the Miracles captured perfectly in this 1962 single. In just the deceptively simple opening line, Robinson captured a million relationships’ worth of complex cat and mouse games. Although the Miracles reached near the top of the pop chart with “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me”, the most solid proof of the song’s universal quality came a year later when the Beatles included a cover on their second, Motown-inspired album. Anyone who claimed that Motown was music only for black people must have found it hard to argue the point once John Lennon and Co. proved them wrong.

“You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me”—and the Miracles themselves—were one of Motown’s notable early success stories. Robinson, who eventually became a vice president of the company, has said that Berry Gordy was inspired to start Motown after beholding the lackluster financial results of an attempt to produce a Miracles single for another label. Robinson penned an untold number of memorable songs for the Miracles and for other Motown artists. But with “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me” he created a single that is essentially bullet-proof. The song fits almost any genre or voice. Laura Nyro included an engaging version on Gonna Take a Miracle, her 1971 collaboration with Labelle. For their collaboration as She & Him, actress Zooey Deschanel and indie rocker M. Ward sang a dreamy duet of the song on last year’s Volume One. Even Eddie Money’s 1977 “lite rock” take isn’t completely objectionable. Sorry Eddie—you were OK, but the song is simply exceptional. Rachel Kipp
[Edited 1/31/09 20:50pm]

16. Jimmy Ruffin, “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” (1966)
Written by William Weatherspoon, Paul Riser, and James Dean
Produced by William Weatherspoon and William “Mickey” Stevenson
Reached #7 on the pop charts

I confess, my actual knowledge of Motown is sparse aside from knowing that the Detroit label produced some of the very best music of the ‘60s and ‘70s. So I can’t talk much about Jimmy Ruffin’s career, his background (aside from being the older brother of the Temptations’ David Ruffin), or his other songs. But you don’t need any of that to be swept under the spell of the debonairly devastated “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted”, a song that ought to seize you by the throat as soon as the backing vocalists start ooh oohing, if you have any kind of heart. Ruffin opens the song with “As I walk these lands of broken dreams”, and sure enough this is the rare end-of-relationship song where there’s no ‘you’ to address. Ruffin asks “who had love that has departed?” in the chorus, but the answer seems to be, “Everyone”. The landscape he walks through is repeatedly depicted as broken and dark, with “no place for beginning”. Not once is there any mention of hope of reconciliation or even hope of life—“What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” does the whole romantic-loss-as-end-of-the-world trope better than almost anyone outside of the Ronettes’ “I Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine” or ABBA’s “The Winner Takes It All”.

And Ruffin deserves his place in that pantheon, because only a lead vocal performance this aching and this carefully judged can really sell the kind of feeling the song tries for. A great chorus and beautiful backing vocals (especially when they remain wordless) aids him, but it’s ultimately up to him to keep the song from seeming either flippant or bathetic and he walks that line nimbly. He invests some real grit and despair into the song—when he sings “I know I’ve got to find / Some kind of peace of mind” he brings a desperation and heat to it that renders it more than the same old cliché. Ruffin’s performance and the sturdy backing serve the song so well that you start thinking of the loss it describes less in terms of romantic relationships and more in terms of a deeper loss of love. As a result, you have something that’s not so much another she-done-me-wrong song as it is the flipside to Elvis Costello’s version of “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding?” with the fury replaced by both a deep melancholy and (almost covertly) a searching optimism—however grim things get, Ruffin never answers the question of the song’s title and it’s enough to let the song and the listener hope that there is some peace of mind out there for him and us, after all. Ian Mathers

17. Barrett Strong, “Money (That’s What I Want)” (1959)
Written by Janine Bradford and Berry Gordy
Produced by Berry Gordy
Reached #23 on the pop charts

Barrett Strong’s “Money (That’s What I Want)” was Motown’s first hit record and appropriately the one to earn enough dough to keep the label afloat during its early years. The song was released in August 1959 and became a regional success. By June 1960, the single reached number two on Billboard magazine’s national R&B and number 23 on the Pop charts. Motown founder Berry Gordy, Jr. and Jamie Bradford wrote “Money”, although there has been some controversy about this because some of the lyrics seem very similar to John Lee Hooker’s tune, “I Need Some Money”. However, the tunes of the two songs are very different. Strong’s “Money” does have a much bluesier feel than the Motown releases that followed. He shouts the words more than he sings them, beginning with the cynical first line, “The best things in life are free / But you can give them to the birds and bees.” While Motown music later became synonymous with songs about young love, this record made it clear that the narrator had more mature concerns.

Ironically, this was one of the few Motown songs covered by that other ‘60s band known for love songs, the Beatles. The Rolling Stones also did a rendition of this tune, as have other acts as different as Led Zeppelin, the Doors, Cheap Trick, Jerry Lee Lewis, Smashing Pumpkins, Hanson, and the Pretenders. The song’s appeal lies in its naked appeal to greed. There’s nothing subtle here. The lead singer repeats “Give me money / That’s what I want” several times with nasty inflections through out the song.

Gordy and company first released this song during a time when money and music made news, during the Payola era when Congress investigated radio disc jockeys for taking bribes to play certain 45s. Songs of teen idols and youthful innocence filled the airwaves as a result. Strong’s “Money” served as a bracing tonic to those major label confections about “Puppy Love” (such as Paul Anka’s 1960 big hit by that name). Instead of treating teens like sweet kids, “Money” spoke to them subversively as jaded adults. That’s what made the song seem so rebellious. The teens that dug “Money” expressed their independence by rejecting the sentimental and romantic in favor of something more authentic and gritty. And nothing is more real than “Money”, and that’s what the kids wanted. Steven Horowitz

18. The Supremes, “You Can’t Hurry Love” (1966)
Written by Holland-Dozier-Holland
Produced by Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier
Reached #1 on the pop charts

“Where Did Our Love Go” is widely regarded as a tipping point for the Supremes. Written and produced by the inimitable Holland-Dozier-Holland team, the 1964 song topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for two weeks. Diana Ross sings about “this yearning, burning, yearning feeling” with a degree of longing that shifts her delivery outside of an airy comfort zone and into expressive sync with the lyrics. In addition to being a star-making turn for Ross, Florence Ballard, and Mary Wilson, the impact of the song was to introduce a rough template for future hits. “Love Is Here and Now You’re Gone”, the group’s ninth number one hit, is another notable example of what Lamont Dozier calls the “bluesy pop” strand of their discography. Although the Supremes moved in many directions over the course of the group’s career, the most resonant songs are those that acknowledge the full weight—the crush—of young love.

Signature song “You Can’t Hurry Love”, a 1966 number one hit, moves more nimbly than many of the Supremes songs in this tradition. Whereas the spoken word sections, prominent harpsichord, and comparative angularity of “Love Is Here and Now You’re Gone” explicitly announce soulful profundity, “You Can’t Hurry Love” nests its depth in what could be mistaken for inconsequential, sugary pop. The instrumentation (including James Jamerson’s energetic bass guitar and Earl Van Dyke’s percussive piano) and the ubiquity of the song in popular culture make it possible to treat the song as a danceable confection. But the tension between that comforting sound and anxious lyrics is what gives the song its exceptional honesty, reflecting a kaleidoscopic emotional terrain.

The thematic vacillation between impulse and restraint, common in the musical traditions from which the song draws inspiration, is manifested in the song’s two characters. Although Ross alone sings the lead, her perspective shifts throughout the song between a lovesick daughter and sagacious mother. Unlike Dolly Parton’s “When Love Is New”, a kindred song that actually casts two singers (Parton and Emmy Rossum) in these roles, “You Can’t Hurry Love” is the story of a daughter remembering the wisdom passed down to her rather than literally being reminded within the song. The effect is to focus the attention on the daughter’s emerging womanhood as it bears her mother’s influence. She is temporarily without “a love to call [her] own”, but she will wait and endure the “game of give and take”. To consider the song in this context is to be exposed to a struggle that surreptitiously answers the tragic, romantic quandaries often raised in the Supremes discography: “You Can’t Hurry Love” reluctantly sides with the heartache of loneliness instead of the heartbreak of love lost and love gone wrong. But it ain’t easy. Thomas Britt

19. The Supremes, “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” (1966)
Written by Holland-Dozier-Holland
Produced by Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier
Reached #1 on the pop charts

Motown has always had a flair for the dramatic. Many of the label’s biggest acts of the 1960s, including the Temptations, the Four Tops, and the Supremes, are remembered today for love songs with layers of vocals, thumping drums, heavy but fluid bass lines, and monolithic hooks. Although some Motown hits might have screamed a lover’s name louder, few were as rockingly dramatic as the Supremes’ “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”. The song is Motown at its most Metal.

The lyrics of this Supremes hit detail the miseries of a woman in love with a man who only wants her for her body. But she’s not going to wallow in unhappiness any longer—she’s telling her sometimes-lover to get out of her life. As female performers, Diana Ross and the Supremes provided the opportunity for Motown to voice women’s concerns, and in this song, their voices are not used frivolously. “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” was not the first song about a woman telling off a no-good man, but its relative sexual frankness and thumping insistence make it stand out as a strong female statement in a male-dominated cultural form.

Musically, “Hangin’ On” is typical of a melodramatic 1960s Motown single but for one feature that makes it especially unique. The song begins with two guitars rhythmically tapping out the same note over and over. The note continues through every chorus of the song, adding a sense of urgency to the big beats beneath it and the plaintive vocals above. This one-note riff became the centerpiece of arguably the first great metal song when Vanilla Fudge released their cover of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” and included the song on their debut album in 1967. The song sounded new all over again, perfectly at home in the psychedelic metal genre that Vanilla Fudge was helping to create. “Hangin’ On” has resurfaced many times since, notably in 1986 as a pounding synth-pop dance hit, complete with orchestra-hit keyboards, by Kim Wilde. No matter the year, when an artist covers “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”, the song’s drama sounds contemporary, immediate and urgent. David Camak Pratt

20. The Temptations, “Get Ready” (1966)
Written and produced by Smokey Robinson
Reached #29 on the pop charts

The Temptations are a Motown Records institution, having spent 40 years with the label and charting 14 Billboard R&B number one singles over the course of their career. Like many other artists on the label, the Temptations often shifted sound and lineup in order to stay relevant, but their most beloved output remains that of the “classic five” period in the 1960s. This lineup of Melvin Franklin, Eddie Kendricks, David Ruffin, Otis Williams, and Paul Williams recorded “Get Ready”, which was written and produced by Smokey Robinson. It was their last major Robinson collaboration, as the song failed to meet Berry Gordy’s top ten expectations on the United States pop chart.

The single edit of the 1969 Rare Earth cover of “Get Ready” did eventually reach number four on the Billboard Hot 100, but that group’s solo-packed 21-minute album version deadens the dramatic impact of the original. Although additional versions of the song pop up every now and then (most recently and dubiously by Fergie), my favorite contemporary use of the song is in the original theatrical trailer for Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown. One of pastiche master Tarantino’s greatest tricks is to breathe new life into both score and source music through sometimes straightforward, sometimes ironic combinations of visual and aural elements. The use of “Get Ready” in the trailer for a darkly comic caper film highlighted the song’s emphasis on preparing for and executing an act (in this case, a criminal one). It was that 1997 trailer that focused my attention on the song’s structural vitality and revived my appreciation for the Temptations.

Of the song’s many pleasures, the two key contributors here are Funk Brothers drummer Benny Benjamin and lead vocalist Eddie Kendricks. On the verse, Benjamin plays the snare drum on the second and fourth quarter notes as Kendricks uses his smooth falsetto to sing the praises of a potential lover. The backing vocals alternate with his lines to echo the sentiment of the compliments his pays her ("You’re alright” / “You’re outta sight). This guarded groundwork stands in contrast to the swelling choruses, during which Kendricks focuses on how fit and ready he is. Here he shifts into a more confident delivery and Benjamin attacks the snare on all four quarter notes as the backing vocals and strings soar up and down. This perfectly executed unification of sweetness and swagger makes each chorus a joyous climax.

Sadly, the legacy of a song like “Get Ready” has been squandered by many of today’s would-be R&B stars. As a depressing point of comparison, listen to Omarion’s “O”, which reads like a shadow version of “Get Ready”. Robinson wrote, and the Temptations sang about “bringing you a love that’s true” and the result still brings joy to the ears. Conversely, Omarion commands his woman to “come on over and let’s get this thing crackin’ / You’ll be surprised when you see what Os I’m packin / ‘Cause I’m young but I’m ready”. Something tells me his dream girl is still waiting for the chorus to kick in. Thomas Britt

21. The Temptations, “I Can’t Get Next to You” (1969)
Written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong
Produced by Norman Whitfield
Reached #1 on pop charts

In the pantheon of songs that use super-human feats of strength/endurance as a measuring stick for capacity to love (see “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough"), this one’s the daddy of ‘em all, a gospel-funk space-blues jam in which the Temptations boast about being able to do the following: turn the grey sky blue, make it rain whenever, build a castle from a single grain of sand, make a ship sail on dry land, turn back the hands of time, fly like a bird – even live forever, y’all! It is also, however, the saddest of this particular subset, because the Tempts’ incredible abilities cannot make up for the fact that they don’t get the girl: “The thing I want to do the most / I’m unable to do.” This song is the heartbreak of the gods.

“I Can’t Get Next to You” was one of the first singles released by the newly David Ruffin-less Temptations. Ruffin, who had been with the group since 1964, was fired in the middle of 1968 after his erratic behavior had begun to cause tension among the group’s members. His replacement was Dennis Edwards, formerly of the Contours, who brought a raw, gritty voice to the Temptations’ otherwise smooth constitution. The Temptations’ new sound was compounded further by their new association with writer-producer Norman Whitfield and his foray into “psychedelic soul”, which ushered in newfound freedom of composition and performance to the rigid Motown aesthetic. (If you do not own this, do yourself a favor and pick it up immediately.) Many of the unedited psychedelic soul-era tracks would extend well into the six-, nine-, even 12-minute runtime, but “I Can’t Get Next to You” modestly clocks in just under three minutes—an example of pop-minded brevity in an age of expanding consciousness. Zeth Lundy

22. The Velvelettes, “Needle in a Haystack” (1964)
Written by William “Mickey” Stevenson and Norman Whitfield
Produced by Norman Whitfield
Reached #45 on pop charts

The Velvelettes’ 1964 single “Needle in a Haystack” was, according to the group, a song they were less than enthused to record. Co-written and produced by Motown’s own Norman Whitfield, the song would ironically go on to become one of their biggest hits. Caldin “Carolyn” Gill, Bertha Barbee, Norma Barbee, and Mildred “Millie” Gill were discovered at Western Michigan University and soon after signed to Motown. Often overshadowed by some of Motown’s more popular girl groups, such as the Supremes and Martha and the Vandellas, the Velvelettes, like many other Motown artists, are not as recognizable today. “Needle in a Haystack” contains all the elements that make a Motown song so immediately accessible and familiar: the perfect blend of lead and backing vocals, punctuated by piano and handclaps, and that hard-driving, undeniable beat. Clocking in at just two minutes and 32 seconds, “Needle in a Haystack” delivers more energy and style than most songs released today and there is not a wasted moment in the entire thing.

Gill’s lead vocal is filled with power and her playful, lively delivery is especially satisfying during the tail end of the song. For all the precise placement of backing vocals and instrumentation, Gill’s vocal is strong and decidedly in the forefront as the song begins, but as it progresses, the song becomes more loose and Gill’s vocal represents the shift well. There’s a reason why “Needle in a Haystack” was chosen as the first song on Rhino’s wonderful box set One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost and Found. It’s a song that not only speaks to what makes girl groups as important musically as any other pop style, but it also represents what Motown has contributed to our musical landscape. Not least of which is the Velvelettes singing, “Findin’ a good man, girls / Is like findin’ a needle in a haystack”—a statement that eschews much of the romanticism and longing associated with girl group pop songs.

There are lyrics that speak to an early feminist sensibility ("Girls, those fellas are sly, slick, and shy / So don’t you ever let `em get you starry-eyed"), along with moments that undermine these very words ("You’d better play hard to get / Or you’re gonna regret / The day you were born, girl / When he leaves you alone, girl"). However, despite these mixed messages, the Velvelettes were able to deliver in a way that never felt less than powerful. There is a real strength in their interpretation of the lyrics and it serves to elevate the song. It’s the matter-of-fact lyrics, along with the Velvelettes’ strong, straight-ahead delivery of the material, and the unmistakable Motown sound that makes the song as immediate and enjoyable as it is. “Needle in a Haystack” stands as one of the great Motown songs of the 1960s era and it remains an excellent example of the Velvelettes’ unique place in that history. Jessica Suarez

23. Stevie Wonder, “Living for the City” (1973)
Written and produced by Stevie Wonder
Reached #8 on pop charts

Stevie Wonder is a popular culture archetype come to life. Beginning his career as a child prodigy, he grew into a songwriter and performer of depth and substance. His music is groundbreaking and widely popular, socially and politically significant while retaining an air of optimism, making Wonder something of a Motown Beatle. He has been blind his entire career, a major hindrance for any artist that nonetheless lends him the air of an insular musical genius (an impression he propagates with album titles like Music of My Mind (1972) and Innervisions (1973)).

Wonder wrote some of the greatest love songs of the 20th century, and the cultural importance of those pieces is undeniable. But with Wonder’s coming of age, he also emerged as a writer of great protest songs. His commentary had a wide scope; for instance, he gave fallen President Nixon a one-two punch with “He’s Misstra Know It All” and “You Haven’t Done Nothin’”, he challenged drug use with “Too High”, and he addressed the struggles of African-Americans in “Village Ghetto Land” and “Black Man”.

Most of Wonder’s protest pieces could be listed as great Motown songs. However, as a piece that works exceedingly well both as social protest and as pop music, few compare with “Living for the City”. The lyrics of this song concern an African-American family living with the specter of Jim Crow in Mississippi. Mom and Dad both have jobs, but they barely make enough money to keep the family going. The children remain optimistic despite the obvious difficulty of their circumstances. The beautiful daughter is stuck wearing the same old clothes over and over, but she never lets those clothes get dirty. Her brother continues to search for work even though, where he lives, “they don’t use colored people”. The song’s bridge is a mini-drama that Wonder acts out using several difference voices, wherein the young man of the family takes a bus to New York City only to find that life on the East Coast is even harder than it was in the Deep South.

Wonder’s keyboards are rich and ominous, his bass and drums solid and funky. All combine to form a danceable groove that packs a rock punch. At seven and a half minutes, the song is epic—indeed, the lyrics take us from Mississippi to New York to prison and back—but the music is dance-ready and catchy, worming its way into the head despite the song’s length and the gloomy lyrical content. As usual for Wonder, “Living for the City” is essentially a one-man show; he performs most of the instruments and vocals. Indeed, Wonder strongly suggests here that the image of him as an insular genius is probably more than just an image. With its combination of pop sensibility, socially-charged lyrics, and studio mastery, “Living for the City” suggests that, in the 1970s, Stevie Wonder was more than a Motown Beatle. He was the Motown Beatles. David Camak Pratt

24. Stevie Wonder, “Superstition” (1972)
Written and produced by Stevie Wonder
Reached #1 on pop charts

The ‘70s were a crucial time for Motown’s blind musical genius, “Little” Stevie Wonder. All throughout the ‘60s, the pop prodigy had buoyed Berry Gordy’s coffers with a collection of finger-snapping confections that any singer-songwriter would be envious of. Turning 21 in 1971, Wonder wanted more control over his career, his output, and his material. Finding it impossible to deny such an important member of the Hitsville heavies (and with label-mate Marvin Gaye leading the way), Gordy granted his request. Wonder soon became a virtual one-man band, bringing synthesizers into his hot mix and expanding the message of his music. While love ballads and good times were not necessarily gone, they were replaced by a simmering social consciousness that would result in six of the most stunning albums in any musicians career: Where I’m Coming From (1971), Music of My Mind, Talking Book (both 1972), Innervisions (1973), Fulfillingness’ First Finale (1974), and the multi-mega hit Songs in the Key of Life (1976).

And sitting at the center of said third LP is the astonishing funk workout “Superstition”. Wonder was, at the time, branching out into more mainstream rock arenas, having toured with the Rolling Stones in ‘72. He had hoped to go even further by penning material for other similarly styled artists. In fact, “Superstition” was originally offered to Jeff Beck (of Yardbirds fame) to record. Naturally, Gordy and the gang balked, and with good reason. Wonder had concocted an undeniably infectious groove reinforced by a memorable clavinet riff and propelled by a chorus of lazy, loveable brass blasts. Playing every instrument himself (save for the horns), Wonder worked out the complicated arrangement incrementally, building layers of sound to surround his ideas with an undeniable attention-getting grandeur.

Lyrically, Wonder went for what he does best—symbolism via simplicity. While the main verse offers up the classic stanza, “Thirteen month old baby / Broke the lookin’ glass/ Seven years of bad luck/ The good things in your past”, there is more to the song than the standard black cat fallacies. Indeed, when he gets to the chorus, Wonder makes his point loud and clear: “When you believe in things that you don’t understand / Then you suffer / Superstition ain’t the way.”

At the time, many considered this a statement against intolerance and prejudice. After all, the Civil Rights movement was still bubbling away all across the US. Others saw it as an admonishment right back toward his fellow African-Americans, asking them to seek answers to social ills beyond the standard ‘white man = evil’ paradigm. Baked within the slinking, soulful strut of the song itself, the words worked for either dancing or marching. While “Superstition” would go on to be his first number one single in several years, it also marked the beginning of Wonder’s astonishing maturation into a pop legend. He was no longer “little”. From this moment onward, everything he touched would be big. Really big. Bill Gibron

25. Stevie Wonder, “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)” (1965)
Written by Hank Cosby, Sylvia Moy, and Stevie Wonder
Produced by Clarence Paul
Reached #3 on pop charts

Fans of Talking Book, Innervisions, and Songs in the Key of Life, take heed: without 1965’s “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)”, Stevie Wonder’s most groundbreaking works may have never come to pass. On “Uptight”, Wonder joyfully tells the tale of a boy from the wrong side of the tracks who bests rich-kid Goliaths and gets the girl because, although he doesn’t have money, his “heart is true”. But the song was just as pivotal a victory for Wonder. The popularity of “Uptight” was a declaration of then-15-year-old Wonder’s maturation—and his viability as an artist.

Signed to Motown as a preteen, the artist initially introduced to the world as “Little” Stevie Wonder had a major hit by his early teens with “Fingertips (Pt. 2)”. For the next few years, however, the label didn’t seem to know what to do with him. Wonder had a few singles hit modest positions on the Top 40, but appeared to be in danger of being washed up before he grew up. “Uptight”, which hit number three on the pop charts and number one on the R&B charts, was the perfect song to declare that Wonder was here to stay. Motown songs are almost unparalleled in their opening hooks. “Uptight” has one of the label’s best, full of snappy drums, an ear-catching guitar line, and a horn section that all but declares victory for the song’s scrappy hero. It doesn’t matter if you’ve heard “Uptight” over and over or are listening for the first time—as soon as the those drums kick in, there’s nothing else to do but turn up the volume, roll down the car windows, and sing along at the top of your lungs. “Uptight” is the perfect pick-me-up, even if you’re not a poor guy trying to get the girl (trust me).

Back when “Uptight” was brand new, the single may have been the first time many listeners heard Wonder’s grown-up gravely tenor. He sounds ecstatic here, so much so that any cover attempts (including a duet by the Supremes and Temptations) seem positively bland. “Uptight” was the first Wonder single co-written by the artist. A half dozen years after its release, Wonder wrangled a deal with Motown that gave him complete creative control over his work and thus spent almost the entire next decade churning out classics. There’s just one unfortunate problem here. If music lovers can thank “Uptight” for subsequent note-perfect singles like “Higher Ground” and “Superstition”, by consequence the single must also be partially blamed for Wonder’s missteps, including the dreadful “I Just Called to Say I Love You”. But that’s a small price to pay for “Uptight”—two minutes and 55 seconds of pure, genuine bliss. Rachel Kipp
[Edited 1/31/09 20:52pm]

Timmy for some reason the pictures of the artists aren't showing up by the wonderful write ups you are posting on this page 6.

rubyred69 said:

I just noticed that.

Timmy84 said:

Great interview. Thanks for that, Tim. We don't hear much from Berry, but he makes such true points.

It's gonna take me time to read all the rest here, but thanks.

midnightmover said:

You're welcome, midnight.

I think you must officially own soul walking now...I lovethatsite. Wonderful thread.








prince.soul!

myfavorite said:

Sometimes I wished I did own it. I love that site.

Thanks.

Good stuff.

Nice thread! I love Motown so much it's almost painful.

where do i find the time to read this all this is good stuff

I am just starting Gerald Posner's book.

Just saw a cool program on TV yesterday, hosted by Elvis Costello and featuring Smokey. He sang and talked. Man, Smokey's voice hasn't changed ONE BIT after all these years.

tonight i went to bestbuy in westbury after work and i picked up the last motown no 1's a 10 cd set chronicaling all the hits from begining to end theres about over 100 tracks here all in remastered form..i suggest any lover of motown please get this cd (i know in these econimical conditions it might be hard right now....bestbuy $159.99) but it will be all worth it in the end i promise ya.....

Posner's book was good. Kind of unfocused in towards the last 1/3, but good.

I haven't been able to stop playing this album the longest since yesterday:


[Edited 2/13/09 18:03pm]

Timmy84 said:

Why did they make her look like a twelve year old boy?

midnightmover said:

I think the idea was to try to make Diana not so glamorous on the cover, I heard that after this cover, they had the tagline "500 million records sold" in order to sell the record. It must've worked because it hit number-one on the R&B album chart and number-nineteen on the pop album chart and not too many Motown ALBUMS hit the top 40 on the pop chart (though the Supremes made frequent appearances on the top ten of the albums chart). It's a funny-ass cover tho.
[Edited 2/16/09 8:57am]

Mars23 said:

Org invasion in Motown - come on everyone - I'll take you to the real Hitsville USA (it's a 15 minute drive from my house!)


http://www.motownmuseum.com/




Come celebrate Detroit!

applekisses said:

Great picture of "the house that Berry built."

can someone recommenmd me the best Motown acts of the disco era (not necessarily disco actsneeded)

Stumbled across something to add here...

Labels Distributed by Motown:

Tamla Records

Established 1959; Tamla was a primary subsidiary for mainstream R&B/soul music. Tamla is actually the company's original label; Gordy incorporated Tamla Records several months before establishing the Motown Record Corporation. The label's numbering system was combined with those of Motown and Gordy in 1982, and the label was merged with Motown in 1988. Notable Tamla artists included Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and The Marvelettes. Tamla Records slogan: "The Sound that makes the world go 'round."


Motown Records

Established 1960, Motown was and remains the company's main label for mainstream R&B/soul music (and, today, hip hop music as well). The label's numbering system was combined with those of Tamla and Gordy in 1982, and the label (and company) was purchased by MCA in 1988. Notable Motown artists have included Mary Wells, Diana Ross & The Supremes, The Four Tops , The Jackson 5, Boyz II Men, The Commodores, and Erykah Badu. Motown Records slogan: "The Sound of Young America."


Gordy Records

Established 1961, Gordy was also a primary subsidiary for mainstream R&B/soul music. Originally known as Miracle Records (slogan: "If It's a Hit, It's a Miracle"), the name was changed in 1962 to avoid confusion with the Miracles singing group. The label's numbering system was combined with those of Motown and Tamla in 1982, and the label was merged with Motown in 1988. Notable Gordy artists included The Temptations, Martha Reeves & the Vandellas, The Contours, Rick James, and DeBarge. Gordy Records slogan: "It's What's in the Grooves that Counts"




Secondary R&B labels

Check-Mate Records

Short-lived (1961–1962) secondary R&B/soul subsidiary, purchased from Chess Records. Notable artists included David Ruffin and The Del-Phis (later Martha & the Vandellas).


Miracle Records

Short-lived (1961) secondary R&B/soul subsidiary that lasted less than a year. Some pressings featured the infamous tagline, "If it's a hit, it's a Miracle." Shut down and reorganized as Gordy Records in 1962. Notable artists included Jimmy Ruffin and early recordings by The Temptations).


Soul Records

Established 1964, Soul was a secondary R&B/soul subsidiary for releases with less of a pop feel and/or more of a traditional soul/blues feel. Notable Soul artists included Jr. Walker & the All-Stars, Gladys Knight & the Pips and Jimmy Ruffin. The label was dissolved in 1978.


V.I.P. Records

Established 1964, V.I.P. was a secondary R&B/soul subsidiary. Notable artists included Shorty Long, The Velvelettes, The Spinners, The Monitors, The Elgins and Chris Clark. The label was dissolved in 1974.


Mo-West Records

Mo-West was a short-lived (1971–1973) subsidiary for R&B/soul artists based on the West Coast. Shut down when the main Motown office moved to Los Angeles. Notable artists included G.C. Cameron, Syreeta Wright and Los Angeles DJ Tom Clay.


Motown Yesteryear

A label created in late 1970s and used through the 1980s for the reissues of 7 inch singles from all eras of the company's history, after printing in the initial label has ceased. [6] One Motown Yesteryear single made Billboard's Top 40 - The Contours' "Do You Love Me", in 1988, when its inclusion in the film "Dirty Dancing" revived interest.



Alternative genre labels


Divinity Records

Short-lived (1961–1963) gospel subsidiary.


Mel-o-dy Records

Established in 1962 as a secondary R&B/soul music subsidiary, Mel-o-dy later focused on white country music artists. Notable Mel-o-dy artists include Dorsey Burnette. The label was dissolved in 1965.


Workshop Jazz Records

Motown's jazz subsidiary, active from 1962 to 1964. Notable Workshop Jazz artists included the George Bohannon Trio and Four Tops (whose recordings for the label went unissued for 30 years).


Rare Earth Records

Established in 1969 after the signing of Rare Earth (after whom the label was named), Rare Earth Records was a subsidiary focusing on rock music by white artists. Notable acts included Rare Earth, R. Dean Taylor, The Pretty Things, Stoney & Meatloaf and Shaun Murphy (singer). The label also was the subsidiary to house the first white band signed to Motown: The Rustix. The label was dissolved in 1976, and its acts moved to the Prodigal subsidiary.


Weed Records

A very short-lived subsidiary. Only one release, Chris Clark's 1969 CC Rides Again album, was issued. This release featured the tongue-in-cheek tagline, "Your Favorite Artists Are On Weed." The name "Weed Records" is now owned by the Tokyo-New York based Weed Records.


Black Forum Records

A Spoken word subsidiary which focused mainly on albums featuring progressive political and pro-civil rights speeches/poetry. Black forum issued recordings by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Stokely Carmichael, Elaine Brown, and others from 1970 until 1973.


Natural Resources Records

This label was active from 1972 to 1973 and in 1976 as a minor subsidiary for white artists and instrumental bands. Served as a label for Motown, Tamla, and Gordy reissues and Motown compilation albums in 1978 and 1979.


Prodigal Records

Purchased by Motown in 1974, Motown used Prodigal Records as a second rock music subsidiary; a sister label to Rare Earth Records. The Rare Earth band moved over to the label following the Rare Earth label's demise. Prodigal was dissolved in 1978.


Hitsville Records

Founded as Melodyland Records in 1974, the name was changed to Hitsville in 1976. Like Mel-o-dy before it, Hitsville focused on country music. Notable artists included Pat Boone and T.G.Sheppard. The label was dissolved in 1977.


Morocco Records

Meaning "Motown Rock Company," As the name suggests, Morocco was a rock music subsidiary. Active from 1983 to 1984, it was a short-lived attempt to revive the Rare Earth Records concept. Only seven albums were released on the label. It's two most promising acts, Duke Jupiter and the black New Wave trio Tiggi Clay (via their lead singer, Fizzy Qwick) eventually moved to the parent label.


Onedirection Records

A record label owned by Stevie Wonder, it had one 12-inch dance release, the 15-minute rap track "The Crown" by Gary Byrd and the G.B. Experience.


Motown Latino Records

Short-lived (1982) subsidiary for Spanish language Latin American music.


Mo Jazz Records

Another jazz label created in the 1990s. Notable artists included Norman Brown, Foley, and J.Spencer.


Mad Sounds Recordings

Short lived hip hop/rap subsidiary label, released 5 albums in the mid 1990s.



Independent labels distributed by Motown

Chisa Records

Motown released output for Chisa, a label owned by Hugh Masekela, from 1969 to 1972 (prior to that, the label was distributed by Vault Records).


Ecology Records

A very short-lived label owned by Sammy Davis, Jr. and distributed by Motown. Only release: single "In My Own Lifetime"/"I'll Begin Again", by Davis in 1971.


CTI Records

Motown distributed output for CTI Records, a jazz label owned by Creed Taylor, from 1974 to 1975. CTI subsidiaries distributed by Motown included Kudu Records, Three Brothers Records and Salvation Records.


Gull Records

A UK-based label still in operation, Motown released Gull's output in the US in 1975. Gull had Judas Priest on its roster in 1975, but their LP Sad Wings of Destiny, intended for release by Motown in the US, was issued after the Motown/Gull Deal had fallen through.


Biv 10 Records

A hip-hop/R&B label that was founded by Bell Biv Devoe/New Edition member Michael Bivins. The label operated throughout most of the 1990s. Its roster included Another Bad Creation, Boyz II Men, and 702.

...Didn't see this posted already but maybe I just missed it.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

theAudience said:

Thanks, tA!