Two of my favourite musical styles. Motown of course, being named after the “Motor City” Detroit, which has experienced its share of hard times in the recent past.
Founded by Berry Gordy in 1958, the label was better known as Tamla Motown outside of the States. Motown’s most notable achievement was almost 80 top ten hits between 1960-1969, a significant proportion of which were attributable to its legendary songwriting team of Holland Dozier Holland.
When you hear a Motown classic from that era, you will know. It will lift you effortlessly off your feet.
Soul – there are no time limits on this magnificent musical style. I’d like to think of it as a more multidimensional expression of the Blues. It invariably focuses on those most basic and profound human emotions, love and heartbreak. Which makes it no different to most contemporary music, when you think about it – and yet it is.
One of my favourite Motown tunes – the original and the best:
Some knockout soul:
Enjoy, Cats!
Witnesses being short on the ground, it seems … 🙂
Just love those Four Tops.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3bksUSPB4c
Do the MC5 qualify as Motown?
All I ask …
Oh, yeah.
Much copied, but the original and the best.
Temptations – Just My Imagination.
‘Stones did a great version on Some Girls.
Of course, any and every hit of the Supremes is a classic.
I hear a symphony.
Band of Gold, 1970.
Not Motown, but a nice piece of soul:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXKVncqySj8
Two fine tracks! Haven’t heard the second one for quite a while, very smooth.
I’m going to repeat one I put up yesterday, since I liked it so much and the video is so gloriously funky.
Ike and Tina Turner – Nutbush City Limits (1973)
Ike and Tina weren’t Detroit, but they did the Motown style just fine I think.
Bruce – that film clip for one of the most awesome funk tunes of all time is just bloody awesome.
Miss Charney – brunette magnificence. 🙂
Smokey!
The tracks of my tears.
In any just world, Ike’s opening licks on Nutbush City Limits would have been heritage listed.
Oops…I see it was listed in the header.
Three minutes of incomparable R ‘n’ B …
Best listened to at 2:00am in a nightclub while fully loaded, which describes the first time I ever heard it.
1985, Hip Hop Club, Paddinghurst.
Have to have another one with dancing.
Aretha Franklin – Think (1968 & 1980)
She can really act, a natural. Would be in great demand today, but sadly she’s no longer with us.
(It’s the extended scene from the movie as the lead up dialog is so glorious.)
OK…if Ike & Tina qualify as Motwn I’m stretching the definition to this.
Enjoy.
Not soul, but definitely from the motor city:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwpedKWwS3w
And finally, from me anyway.
Nina Simone and ‘Aint Got No, I Got Life’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtJzr1Wcy_s
California Soul …
Get on up and dance, I tells ya!
Annie Lennox and Al Green.
Put a Little Love in Your Heart.
Everyday peoples …
An underrated track from Stevie Wonder:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcRoNGsI07o
More Al …
Tired of Being Alone.
The Spector’s crowning glory …
Motown funk time.
The Temptations – Papa Was A Rolling Stone (1972)
The Queen of Soul …
Accept no substitutes, under any circumstances, ever.
Magnifique …
Rendered in a more contemporary context with a shout out to “light my fire” …
What happens when Aussies try it?
🙂
Ain’t that peculiar … 🙂
Not Motown or soul but very very close. I didn’t realize until now that Taj Mahal is the guy whose track it actually is.
She Caught The Katy – Taj Mahal (1968)
Calli great work – I loved the Hepnotics. 🙂
Diana Ross Love Hangover-So glad I saw Detroit when DJT was Prez
Sam Cooke
Good Times.
Shining soul, out of the blue from not too long ago.
Written by some unlikely bloke from Suede.
The Stranglers doing Walk On By…? Cool!
I had a couple of Stranglers albums, they were yummy. Can’t recall if they were vinyl or cassette, but I don’t have them now. Gone in a lost past phase change from one existence to another existence. I can’t remember when it was. I’m taking liberty to put up a Stranglers classic. Nothing to do with Motown, but seriously chunky.
The Stranglers – No Mercy (1984)
Rabz gave me the excuse to go off topic, blame him.
More Detroit
Reach out …
Pink Cadillac
Played this version to my nephew back in 2005, who’d only ever heard the Marvin version, him – “what the hell is it?”
The original and the best, that’s what.
The preferred version in these enlightened times – Gladys, just belting it. 🙂
Soul… Irma Thomas.
New Orleans.
So in other words, no film clips featuring Miss Ellie’s magnifique new and improved bottomage, Cats.
It’s enough to make you wonder what is going on.
Soul, slick Philly style
(actually poms)
Not Tamla Motown but White Soul Music by the one and only Dusty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjydOI4MEIw
Dunno why but I got the idea of thinking where this music genre was going to in our time. Which took me to TV On The Radio, a band I doubt most Cats have heard of.
TV On The Radio – Will Do (2011)
TV On The Radio – Golden Age (2009)
TV On The Radio – Second Song (2011)
Really good videos too. I wish African American music had gone down this avenue rather than into rap, which is tedious and angry.
Sheldo – (it’s alleged) the producers at Muscle Shoals were stunned when she turned up and was not wearing the Justine Turdeaux shoe polish.
The Isley Brothers – This Old Heart of Mine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sD8tuRCsec
Oi, I’ve heard of TVotR.
They don’t turn me on though.
Unearthed “Dear Science” this evening while ploughing through my CD collection on a fruitless search for “20 Greatest Motown Hits”.
If I’ve lost the latter, much unhappiness will descend on Casa Rabz at some indeterminate point in the near or far future. 🙂
Oops, the second vid is geoblocked. Here it is available in Oz.
TV On The Radio – Golden Age
I try to link the original artists’ site, like I did, but sometimes that gets me into trouble.
Rabzsays:
July 2, 2022 at 9:53 pm
Sheldo – (it’s alleged) the producers at Muscle Shoals were stunned when she turned up and was not wearing the Justine Turdeaux shoe polish.
That is funny as…………………….
Stand By Me by Ben E King
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5i9vT8wGY8
Motown co-founder Berry Gordy’s son-
…what the hell happened?
Not his most famous song, but his best by a long shot. With that scourge of US RnB, the extended video interlude.
It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World – James Brown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juTeHsKPWhY&list=PLeahGqPTExEM2vM2jo2_9cBLAQyBu9Uoq&index=26
I’m off. But in keeping with the idea where this all went here’s one place where it went. Rabz’ first track in the comments rapidly became this.
Rolling Stones – Can I Get A Witness (1964)
Motown and the Stones was a match made in heaven, or something. I’ve loved every minute of the progeny since then.
Green Onions – Booker T and the MGs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oox9bJaGJ8
r.e.s.p.e.c.t just because
and you can leave your hat on
not strictly motown but, of the era
was at a Labor party gig once and my ex-missus did Aretha karaoke on the table with the swinging microphone and all
same night Paul Keating did ‘leave yr hat on’ complete with a shirt button rip.
Stevie Wonder and Superstition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDZFf0pm0SE&list=PL_-6vnNRxvCPcrGT25_Wkhr0GVfjAsc_l&index=16
Clarence Carter – https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiKxtirotr4AhWr7zgGHWOjAfEQyCl6BAgTEAM&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DIvfsfS6NVUc&usg=AOvVaw2KPSUy0QtFqqntP3XR4zsz
Late to the party, as usual, and, rather than bring music, I’ll just share an experience.
A short work assignment in Detroit meant a little opportunity to do some touring on the weekends. The Henry Ford museum is a must: I could probably take two days to do justice to both the indoor display area (trains, Edison’s VW Kombi camper, Rosa Park’s bus, many presidential limos including that one) and Greenfield Village (a Swan Hill Pioneer Settlement on steroids with relocated buildings and artifacts of historical significance). Nearby Niagara Falls lives up to the hype – take the behind the falls tour though rock tunnels that show the water from the inside. By contrast, the Detroit overhead railway, while not a monorail, was worth riding only to experience its Simpsons-esque decrepitude.
On a main road in a dilapidated part of town (one of them), where every second house is abandoned and the KFC five doors up the road has 4″ plexiglass between the servers and the customers with a shuffle box in the counter, is Motown’s Hitsville studio, now a museum. Two houses joined together, filled with memorabilia and dedicated guides to take you through the buildings. Apart from the memorabilia on the walls and the stories related by the guides, naturally the highlight is the main studio, still set up with various instruments and period consoles for the producers beyond the windows. We were given a chance to perform our own acapella renditions of My Girl for the gents and Stop! In The Name of Love for the ladies of the tour group. Photos were officially forbidden but I see one has escaped into the wild and is as I remember it. It’s smaller than the photo suggests, or maybe that was the size of our group.
A worthwhile visit. As a bonus, our rental car was where we left it, around in a side street, and unmolested.
Actually, in the 15-odd years since I was there, many of the houses – both the abandoned ones and the ones in-between that were obviously loved – have been razed. Check out the streetview images between 2009 and recent.
NKP bringing the reality (again) …
Okay then, Rabz, let’s do a little uplifting…
And there you go,
Stevie Wonder, er, a tribute group is touring here in September…Oh, and the Motown rule of thumb for predicting hits among the staff (as related by our guide): Imagine you’re a school kid in the ’60s with money in your pocket to buy lunch. Would you forego your lunch and instead buy this single? If enough of the staff at-least thinks the prospect worthy of consideration, the single passes the test.
This has been mentioned but not linked, so here it is.
The Sydney rain woke me up.
Move on Up by Curtis Mayfield
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGR9bQh-kpk&list=PL_-6vnNRxvCPcrGT25_Wkhr0GVfjAsc_l&index=26
More White Soul from Dusty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhV3Ual2HGA&list=PLvDnTGmoknUXQ8HGe2cfyXi4qJblmW5do&index=19
Standing in the shadows of Motown is a great documentary. It’s about the musicians that played on most of the tracks from that era.
Thanks Rabz for a fine night of great music!
Really contrasts the desert of music now, I don’t know why since we still have all those instruments and so much more to work with. I was in a bottleshop yesterday, they were playing Don’t Bring Me Down by ELO. Which is from 1979. You rarely hear anything modern and interesting in shops and public spaces, it’s all this golden era stuff. Which is great! But shows up the current age of rap and elevator music.
time to get down and boogie..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54HSk7-q960
Sad to hear Sir Rod Stewart is banned for life from this thread. 🙂
Oh my gosh dear, they’re playing our song. Do you remember back then.
Almost forgot the counterpart to My Girl is, of course, My Guy.
Me and that woman we don’t mention …
The Rawls – about as smooth as it gets, Cats …
When will I see you again –
Do the Hustle! 🙂
Damn this thread !
It’s taken me 36 hours to work through it ?
Well done all !!