Now I know Prince is one and then there's the artists like Boys to Men who are actually signed to Motown but my question is more directed at what other artists in different music categories have been influenced.

I found a Blue Note tribute to Motown with Naji which is Jazz.

Stones covered a song

Lenny Kravitz? Sly?

What do you music people think?

Man, it would take some time to compile that list! ...it would include everyone from the Beatles to the Stones, Todd Rundgren to Hall and Oates, to Phil Collins, to Rod Stewart, Terence Trent D'arby, to Paul Young, to D'angelo, to Marcus Miller, to Michael Mcdonald (even Dylan was apparently a fan of Smokey Robinson)....if you're including people who have done motown covers, everyone from Frank Sinatra to Otis Redding, to Aretha Franklin, to Weather Report, to Vanilla Fudge, to Van Halen, Madonna, to Bono, J Geils Band, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt , David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Peter Frampton, Mitch Ryder, Robert Palmer,Red Hot Chilli Peppers, ZZ Hill, The Carpenters, Dave Clark 5, Dusty Springfield, Mariah Carey, Cyndi Lauper,...
[This message was edited Thu May 27 14:00:20 2004 by paligap]

IMHO Motown had a much bigger influence on music in general than The Beatles ever did (of course they interbred, with The Beatles paying tribute to Motown through covers and vice versa).

paligap said:

Whatchew know bout Vanilla Fudge paligap?

tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...rmusic.htm

theAudience said:

Here is what I know: Tim Bogert is an awesome bassist.

How about Opera? Think it influenced any artists from that genre?

Country music? Rap/Hip-hop artists?

VoicesCarry said:

That says a lot about the Beatles that you would compare a whole label of great musicians to just one band.
It's actually a good comparison, though. I think these two forces were the biggest influences of the 60's, and the influence is still felt today.

andyman91 said:

Not just the Beatles, but the whole wave of music they ushered in. The Motown analogues of The Beatles would be Berry Gordy, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, H-D-H, The Funk Brothers and Motown's keystone artists - who created and managed The Motown Sound just as tightly as The Beatles managed theirs. It is interesting to note that even The Beatles understood the power of Motown's sound - they were listening to it and incorporating some of its elements long before they hit it big. Which is, of course, why Motown's covers of Beatles songs and Beatles covers of Motown songs often worked quite well. And, later, some Motown artists and songwriters (Marvin and Stevie, especially) started to break free and incorporate some of the social themes that the Beatles found so worthwhile (although, to be fair, we had songs like "Dancing In The Street" and "Jimmy Mack" long before then). If The Beatles defined rock music, then Motown defined R&B/soul in the same manner. Which is more important simply depends on your tastes.

Of course Motown influenced more than R&B artists. Motown even managed to influence The Beatles (and vice versa). It had huge influences on labels like Stax, Atlantic and King. The Motown Sound is tremendously prevalent in modern music (in R&B, soul, disco, dance-pop, slow-jam balladry, protest songs, and so on). Even a track like Madonna's "Holiday" owes a great deal to Motown barn-burners like "Heat Wave", "Quicksand" and "Dancing In The Street".

I do think that Motown has had a much greater influence than The Beatles and their ilk in certain spheres, especially dance music. The Beatles, I would say, are primarily responsible for ushering in the 70's singer-songwriter boom; but over the past 20 years, I've seen a general shift to a greater Motown influence, especially in pop and R&B. Michael Jackson, arguably the biggest pop star of the past twenty years, owes an incredible debt to Motown. Songs like Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" are simply Motown but more acerbic. Then there are some artists, like Lauryn Hill, Tracy Chapman and Me'Shell NdegéOcello, who seem to derive almost equal infleunce from both - although it could be argued that Tracy is more Lennon while Me'Shell is more Wonder.
[This message was edited Fri May 28 12:59:24 2004 by VoicesCarry]

Slave2daGroove said:

Doubtful.


Country music has a lot in common structurally and thematically with old R&B music in general, but just how much it was influenced by Motown itself, I'm not sure.

Songs like "Head To Toe" and "Lost In Emotion" by Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam were VERY Supremes-ish.

Supernova said:

Actually the producers said they combined Mary Wells' "You Beat Me To The Punch" and "Two Lovers" to get "Head To Toe".

how old are you slave2thegroove? no disrespect whatsoever, its just that motown was so influential right across the board in pop, soul, R&B, jazz, funk, etc etc i dont know how on earth anyone could measure that influence.

and the beatles were influenced by motown too.
[This message was edited Sat May 29 8:51:48 2004 by funkbabyandthebabysitters]

VoicesCarry said:

To me Lisa Lisa sounds much more like Supremes era Diana Ross vocally, than Mary Wells. And due to the Motown assembly line production values, the music was basically mass produced during the early '60s, so there wasn't a huge difference at that time.


`
[This message was edited Sat May 29 11:39:16 2004 by Supernova]

Supernova said:

Vocally, yeah, Lisa Velez is a lot closer to Diana Ross. Actually, I got it wrong, however. I'll type out the exact quote:

As 'Head To Toe' was inspired by the records of the Supremes, 'Lost In Emotion' was influenced by Mary Wells. Lou was playing her greatest hits album one day. "The song playing was 'Two Lovers.' And right after 'Two Lovers' came 'You Beat Me To The Punch.' So what we did is made ("Lost In Emotion") a combination of 'Two Lovers' and 'You Beat Me To The Punch." We didn't steal the riffs; all we did was get the flavouring of it. We have a xylophone and some bells....because back in the Motown days they always used those simple instruments. They used real tambourines. The xylophone that you hear is a real xylophone. What we did was put it through an AMS, which is a computerized keyboard."

Motown had its own sound, but I would hardly call its production values "assembly-line". Maybe a Britney Spears record, but Motown had hugely talented session players like The Funk Brothers, recorded live with full orchestras, etc. What they are guilty of is using the same instrumental tracks on hits recorded by different artists, which is what you're probably referring to as the "assembly-line" mentality.
[This message was edited Sat May 29 11:48:38 2004 by VoicesCarry]

VoicesCarry said:

Oh, sure it was. Why do you think it took hard fights for Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye to be granted creative control? Nobody was really allowed their own distinctive musical identity until the late '60s. A rebellious spirit like Marvin Gaye would have NEVER stayed at Motown if he weren't allowed to veer from the status quo that Berry Gordy favored. Nor would Stevie for that matter, but Marvin was the self-destructive one. But I digrees. Saying it was assembly line does not infer that they weren't talented, I'm talking about the fact that they weren't allowed to write their own songs, arrange their own music, etc., until later on. Gordy was content with "Moon in June" fare, as opposed to the topics and harder edges they tackled later on. It's common knowledge.


'
[This message was edited Sat May 29 12:37:22 2004 by Supernova]

Supernova said:

Well, production values are completely different from the way the label was run. If by production values you're talking about quality of vocals, songwriting, instrumental tracks, background vocals, dubbing, etc. etc. etc. then I'd have to disagree. Certainly there was an assembly-line mentality about the way the label was run, but the fact that the work still holds up today speaks to the quality of production values, not the business model itself.

Berry Gordy's obsessive quality control didn't allow much artistic freedom (more for the songwriters, hardly any for the artists), but it made sure that 75% of whatever Motown released charted on the Billboard Hot 100. So, as a business model it was very successful but yes, assembly-line in practice.

Do you see the difference?

P.S. I do know all about the history of Motown and how Gordy stymied the efforts of both songwriters and artists (Gaye, most notoriously, when he completely remixed the What's Going On LP) to win artistic freedom.
[This message was edited Sat May 29 13:00:14 2004 by VoicesCarry]

VoicesCarry said:

I'm not really talking about how the label was run, per se. I'm talking about the musical and lyrical aspects, sonically, thematically and performance-wise. Now realize, Motown acts were required to go to charm school too, this reflects (especially early in the company's existence) on their live and tv performances. Much like a long-running musical group or artist, Motown had a sound, and most everybody on the label had that sound for a while. When you heard a Motown song, you KNEW it was a Motown song. That's not a negative. You seem to be confusing the fact that I say this with equating it to saying the music doesn't hold up, or that the Funk Bros., Holland/Dozier/Holland, etc. weren't talented. That's not the case. They had a formula at one time, and everybody knew The Sound of Young America when they heard it, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a quality formula.

Supernova said:

Agreed. That formula was ironclad in the early 60's, but it slowly eroded as the decade came to a close.

VoicesCarry said:

I knew you'd get me eventually.


`
[This message was edited Sat May 29 15:15:05 2004 by Supernova]

Supernova said:

Sorry, I knew what you were saying, but my beef was with "production values", which we were discussing in a different sense (you: their overall sound, me: the actual components of individual tracks).

VoicesCarry said:

Yeah, I could have described it better.