Well now we turn to the performers on the Motown label and we're going to focus really the, I mean, the, the, the high point of the period is the one that we're going to between 64, 66, sort of parallel to the first big success of the Beatles and the American response, which really starts to launch in the summer of 1965. Remember our talk about folk rock, Mr. Tambourine Man, Dylan and, and all of that last week. The early successes at Motown, the sort of first performers to really get on the charts, besides what we're talking about before, the Marvellettes and Mr. Postman or the Contours, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. Smokey Robinson not only a singer/producer at Motown, but also an artist in his own right. His group had a, number one R&B hit, number two on the pop charts in 1960 with a track called Shop Around. that was a tune that they recorded and Berry Gordy took the recording home, I don't know if he, he was listening to it on reel to reel or acetate or whatever. Acetates were little sort of temporary records you could press to be able to hear something on your record player, but you could only play the record, you know, maybe a dozen times before it wore out but it was a great temporary way to find out how a record was going to sound. Anyway, he's listening to it at home, he decides in the evening, he decides, you know, this song is just, the tempo is just wrong, the tempo is wrong. So he calls everybody in the Miracles up and says, we have to rerecord it and they said, tomorrow? He said, no, now! So he gets them all out of bed. They all go down to the recording studio in the middle of night. In fact, they couldn't find the piano player who was on the session, so Berry Gordy himself actually plays piano on that record. They adjust the tempo and that's the version that becomes a hit. I mean imagine the, the guy is so sort of consumed with the business that he's going to release a record he decides he's gotta call everybody together at the last minute to totally rerecord it because he's not quite sure the tempo is right. But that's, that's the kind of intensity that Barry Gordon Jr was devoting to Motown in those early years. Thinking about Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, another early hit for them in 1962 is You've Really Got a Hold On Me. That was number one on the R&B charts, number eight on the pop charts and it was a song that The Beatles covered as well in the early days. The Beatles covered a lot of Motown stuff in their their early days when they were doing cover verses on those first few albums. another early star for, for Motown was Mary Wells in 1962. She had a pretty big hit with The One Who Really Loves You. and then the song that I think she's most known for from 1964, a number one on the pop charts, My Guy. Now as we talk about the rest of these artists, I want to start by talking about just the artists that were produced by the Holland Dozier Holland songwriting and production team because in many ways HDH, Holland Dozier Holland were one of the most successful songwriting production teams in all of popular music during the mid 60s. So they compare really quite favorably against people like Bob Dylan The Byrds, The Beatles The Rolling Stones, all of these people who were having tremendous success in the middle of the decade the by 65 or 66. So here are, here are some of the artists that worked with Holland Dozier Holland The Supremes. If you're going to choose one group that really represents what Motown was in the middle of the 1960s, it has to be the Supremes. And for all those people who say that when the Beatles came to this country it pushed the music that was happening before the girl groups, for example, off the charts, well, that's not quite right. Not only were there still Phil Spector girl group hits after The Beatles had their first success in 1964, but the Supremes were nothing if not a girl group. And they had fantastic success from starting in 1964 all the way through the end of the decade. So this may not have been the same girl groups that were coming out of the New York studios, but the ones, the ones, this one coming out of Detroit did just fine thank you very much. So when we tell these stories about the disruption of The Beatles and the British Invasion, there really was an important change that happened with that, but we shouldn't get this the the idea that it changed everything. So the Supremes, very, very important. Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, Florence Ballard, the kind of, the line up that we usually think of. started out life as the Primetets because the Temptations at that time were called the Primes, or a group that would eventually become the Temptations was called the Primes. So they were sort of the girl group. core, corresponding to the to the Temptations, they they kept hanging around the studio wanting to get a record and Berry Gordy Jr apparently at one point said, go home and finish high school, then we'll think about it. they did release a bunch of records and they, all of them flocked, and around Motown they were called the no hit Supremes. Now, at one point Berry Gordy decided that it would, it should be Diana Ross who did all the lead vocals. She's, technically speaking, is not the strongest voice in the Supremes, but she, Berry Gordy saw a certain kind of potential in her voice, a certain kind of power. I think it was a certain kind of sensuality and the delivery of the songs he, he identified and decided she should be the one that really sings lead on all these tunes. So he pairs them together with Holland Dozier Holland, on the third try they get a number one hit in the summer of 1964 with Where Did Our Love Go. A number one hit at the charts at exactly the same time as The Beatles were releasing A Hard Day's Night and everybody was in the throes of Beatlemania. [LAUGH] Here are the Supremes, at the top of the charts. So again, Beatles, Supremes sort of blow for blow, they, they really kind of keep keep pace with each other. well they had five consecutive number one hits. Again, it sounds like I'm talking about The Beatles or The Rolling Stones here. and Baby Love and Come See About Me from 1964, Stop in the Name of Love and Back in My Arms again from 1965 and continued to have fantastic success throughout the, the rest of the 1960s. Of course, Diana Ross going on to have a fantastic solo career when Motown eventually moved to Los Angeles in the 70s and got more involved in the film industry. Another group that was working with Holland Dozier Holland during these years, The Four Tops. So he had, they had the Supremes on one, on, on one hand and their sort of, their girl group and The Four Tops their, their guy group, if you will. They originally formed in 1954 and signed to Chess Records in Chicago, but they moved to Motown in 1964 featuring Levi Stubbs on lead vocals. Their arrangements for HDH often featured orchestra in interesting kinds of ways, maybe more orchestra on those records than you would find on other records by, say, the Supremes, the Temptations, Martha and the Vandellas, some of the other artists. if you're looking for representative examples of The Four Tops, there's probably a couple that you, you really should check out. Baby I Need Your Loving, a number 11 hit from 1964. one of my personal favorites I Can't Help Myself or Sugar Pie Honey Bunch. That one was number one on both the pop and the R&B charts in 1965. Standing in the Shadows of Love was also number one on both charts in 1966. So some fantastic HDH, Four Tops music for in the mid 1960s. HDH also worked with Martha and the Vandellas, now Martha Reeves the lead singer of that group had been a professional singer and was continued to be a professional singer when she was hired at Motown not as a singer but as a secretary. So there was Martha Reeves, you know, typing letters and answering the telephone as the business, trying to get a, a record contract with the, with the label because, of course, she was playing clubs in the evenings. So eventually she gets she gets an opportunity to, to do some singing, first doing background singing. I think she sang background on Marvin Gaye's Stubborn Kind of Fellow from 1962. anyway, her group, Martha and the Vandellas has a very big hit with Heat Wave produced again by HDH number four on the pop charts, number one on the R&B charts in 1963. So there before the, the arrival of the Beatles in this country. Mickey Stevenson takes over for a minute with Dancin' in the Streets, ironically maybe the most the, the most famous of the Martha and the Vandella tunes that's from 1964 a number two hit. And then HDH take over again, they have hits in 1965 with Nowhere to Run and Jimmy Mack in 1967. Other acts work with more than one producer. in fact what Barry Gordy would, Jr would do is he would put an act with the producer until that, they didn't get a hit and then he would switch and try to get another producer, another songwriter into the game see if they would have better luck with that act. So, maybe one of the most famous instances of that is The Temptations, but when I was, when I was talking about The Supremes I said they were originally formed as the, as The Primes. Well they were actually a combination of two groups, The Primes and The Distance came together to form The Temptations. They were famous for their choreography, five guys in the group, fantastic dance moves, but that also brought them into friction with Charlie Atkins, who believed that he was the guy who was in charge of choreography for everybody on the label. But The Temptations were like, hang on man, we already got our routines. So there was a bit of friction there, a bit of tug-of-war over exactly what the moves would be. So The Temptations dance moves were a little bit more athletic, a little bit more show offy and ost, ostentatious than some of what the other groups did. But they were very, they were famous for exactly those same kind of things. When we think about The Temptations, Temptations choreography we have to think of that as a piece with some of the things that James Brown, we'll talk about him a little bit later. Some of the kinds of things James Brown was doing with his dancing and eventually what the Jackson 5 and Michael Jackson would do as we get into the 70s and into the 80s as well. So the Temptations not just for the music, but for their presentation for their, for their choreography became a very influential kind of group. initially, probably during this golden period, mid 60s we're talking about, David Ruffin on lead vocals with also the, the lead vocals of Eddie Kendricks, whose voice is that, that high falsetto kind of thing. Remember last week I was talking about the falsettos on two coasts, there's Brian Wilson singing falsetto in those Beach Boys records and there's Frankie Valli singing with the Four Seasons those those, all those falsetto parts on the east coast. Here, in Motown we've got Eddie Kendricks with maybe the, the, the his number three in that sort of, of triumphant of great sort of falsetto vocals especially if you listen to the tune The Way You Do the Things You Do from 1964, a number 11 hit written by Smokey Ro, written and produced by Smokey Robinson. Smokey went on to have a hit with more hits with the group including My Girl, which was number one on both the pop and R&B charts in 1965. And then things begin to slip a little bit for Smokey and so, Barry Gordy Jr turned it over to Norman Whitfield and Whitfield sort of carried The, The Temptations for the rest of the 60s and into the 70s. Ain't Too Proud to Beg was a number one R&B hit in 1966, 13 on the pop charts. And I Know I'm Losing You was number one on the R&B charts, number eight on the pop charts in 1966. So The Temptations again, another great example of some of the Motown artists in the mid 60s. Others Marvin Gaye, a fantastic singer who worked with a variety of Motown producers producing several hits, Pride and Joy from 1963 was with Mickey Stevenson.How Sweet To Be Loved By You from 1965 was a hit that HDH did with him and Ain't That Peculiar from 1965, was done with Smokey Robinson. we'll talk more about Marvin Gaye when we talk about black pop in the 70s because his album, What's Going On becomes not only an important record for black pop, but one of the first Motown concept albums. And by the time we get to there also with Stevie Wonder, who we'll talk about next. by the time we get to there we're going to have artists play a real kind of a role in producing their own records. Something that's very much at odds with what's happening at Motown right now, which is about producers, artists, studio band, all having their own separate jobs. Finally, let's talk for a minute about Stevie Wonder who starts out as a child star at, at Motown singing and, and playing the harmonica. Initially not really thought of as a songwriter or producer in his own right, which is kind of strange to think of because now that's primarily what we, we think of Stevie Wonder as being one of these guys who can play everything, do everything, a fantastic musician. But at the time he was a performer, singing playing the harmonica. His first big hit, number one on the pop and the R&B charts in 1963 was called Fingertips, Pt 2 and it was actually almost recorded by, recorded by mistake. In other words, it was a, it was a live recording that that it went so well that they ended up releasing it. In fact it was, it was, it was so loose, the live recording was, that the bass player had left the stage to get ready for the next act that was coming out afterwards, I think it was Mary Wells or something because all these Motown groups would perform together on the same show. And you can hear him sort of run back out on the stage, pick up his bass and you can hear on the recording he's saying, what key, what key, you know? So he can get back in on the tune, anyway, that was a big hit for Stevie Wonder, that, all that sort of, infectious Stevie Wonder sort of energy. Really that's the first time it sort of hits the hits the airwaves. Berry Gordy Jr is listed as the producer for that, but as I said, that was not really a produced session. Mickey Stevenson produced Uptight, Everything is Alright, from 1966, another big hit for Stevie Wonder, a number one on the R&B charts, number one on the pop charts. And as I said, with Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder will be somebody we really want to talk about in part two of this class when we talk about black pop in the 1970s because both of these guys are, become extremely important figures in the, in the history of black pop music in the 1970s not withstanding the great role that they play in the 1960s. So, that wraps up our discussion of Motown. We next turn to to Memphis, south south of Motown into southern soul. Stacks, or, as they called themselves, Soulsville, USA.
