Motown musings
Jan. 22nd, 2004 12:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pantryslutI was walking home across Fourth Street early in the afternoon. It was mid-July and hot. Someone had set a radio in a ground-floor window, and as I walked by it was playing a song I'd never heard: Martha and the Vandellas' "Heat Wave." What stopped me in the street, what made me turn, walk back, and listen was that song's introduction, which clearly signaled commercial rock, went on three times as long as the introduction to most pop songs. Then the voices started, launching into complex pop polyphony. The harmonic accompaniment had already veered wildly from the C, A-minor, F, G-7 progression that had dominated rock since its inception.[…]
[F]or three minutes I stood transfixed to the sidewalk in the heat, hearing more musical innovation in that early "Motown sound" record (the Gordy label) than I'd heard in the last six months of AM rock."
-- Samuel R. Delany, The Motion of Light in Water
I saw Standing in the Shadows of Motown the other night.
For those of you who haven't heard about this project, it's a documentary about the rhythm section session musicians, "The Funk Brothers," who played on nearly all the Motown hits. You can catch it on DVD, and I recommend it; it's fabulous and informative and filled with some pretty good performances, too. (I got a promo copy of the soundtrack last year, actually, and I've already graced someone with a CD that contains Me'shell Ndegeocello's version of "Cloud Nine.")
Ever since I mentioned to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
freakysparks how all the shots of the Michigan winter had made me feel just a twinge of nostalgia for where I grew up, I've been thinking about this movie and how it made me feel, and my relationship to its subject.
It's not fashionable to love Motown. It's OK to respect its importance in pop music history. But for some reason, it retains a taint of "guilty pleasure." I think this is because it's so clearly, irreducibly pop music. So it must be dumbed down somehow, you know? It can't be authentic. It can't be true. It's a synthetic confection -- as evidenced by the fact that there was a set of studio musicians playing on every track, no matter who the band was.
(One of my favorite segments of the movie: asking the hip record store patrons if they knew who played the instruments on these famous Motown singles. "The Pips?" one person asks. You know nobody makes that mistake about the Supremes, though.)
I think this attitude is ahistorical, among other things, but that's a discussion for another time. The point is that, while it's OK to acknowledge the genius of, say, What's Goin' On (one of my five my favorite albums ever, not that anyone will ever guess the other four in their entirety), or even of some Smokey Robinson (because he wrote those songs himself, you know), that's all supposed to have happened despite the rigid control Berry Gordy held over his label. We're supposed to scorn the comportment lessons he forced on his female singing acts, and the simplified dance steps he assigned to groups like the Temptations. I've seen it said that he was catering to white folks by dumbing down black music, and I'm not saying those criticisms might not have a point.
Too much of music discussion is about establishing cred rather than the experience of pleasure.
I grew up listening to my Dad sing along with the radio, which was always set to "oldies" stations (though I'm not sure they called it that, yet). He had a natural rich baritone -- used to sing in the church choir -- and an impressive falsetto, too. I was sad to notice, my last trip home, that he has finally lost his high notes. But back in the day, he did a mean Smoky Robinson and the Miracles, I'll tell you. "Shop Around" was his absolute favorite song, which is ironic given he married (and is still married to) the first girl he dated in college.
Just for the record, "Heat Wave" is mine.
If I wanted to, I could excuse my fondness for Motown on growing up with my Dad, on growing up in Michigan, so near that Detroit sound. But I don't want to make excuses for it. Of course my Dad was a huge influence in this case, because without him, I wouldn't have been exposed to it. But he also exposed me to the Beach Boys, and the Beatles, and Bob Dylan, and none of those folks have the same effect on me. And I didn't grow up in Detroit, I grew up in East Lansing. There's a lot more to Michigan than Detroit, and with my relatives in Chicago, that was the city that had the pull, to me.
G. has been wondering what songs it is that I'll sing along to no matter what, because he's hoping to hear me at full throat someday. It's hard, because I'm terribly shy about performing in general, and singing in particular. It's not that I have a bad voice, not at all. It's more complicated than that, and again, this might not be the place to go into detail about it. My "must sing" song list is also eclectic and elusive (I'll tell you some other surefire songs another time, too). But Steven's known the answer for a while now, because he's been in the car with me on long road trips. Somewhere between Kalamazoo and Gary, Indiana, all the radio stations drop out except one or two. There's a country station, and something else, and an "oldies" station with a huge signal. Driving to my brother's wedding may have been the first inkling he had that this was the music that I couldn't resist.
Whenever I'm with him
Something inside
Starts to burnin'
And I'm filled with desire
Could it be the devil in me
Or is this the way love's supposed to be…
[F]or three minutes I stood transfixed to the sidewalk in the heat, hearing more musical innovation in that early "Motown sound" record (the Gordy label) than I'd heard in the last six months of AM rock."
-- Samuel R. Delany, The Motion of Light in Water
I saw Standing in the Shadows of Motown the other night.
For those of you who haven't heard about this project, it's a documentary about the rhythm section session musicians, "The Funk Brothers," who played on nearly all the Motown hits. You can catch it on DVD, and I recommend it; it's fabulous and informative and filled with some pretty good performances, too. (I got a promo copy of the soundtrack last year, actually, and I've already graced someone with a CD that contains Me'shell Ndegeocello's version of "Cloud Nine.")
Ever since I mentioned to
freakysparks how all the shots of the Michigan winter had made me feel just a twinge of nostalgia for where I grew up, I've been thinking about this movie and how it made me feel, and my relationship to its subject.It's not fashionable to love Motown. It's OK to respect its importance in pop music history. But for some reason, it retains a taint of "guilty pleasure." I think this is because it's so clearly, irreducibly pop music. So it must be dumbed down somehow, you know? It can't be authentic. It can't be true. It's a synthetic confection -- as evidenced by the fact that there was a set of studio musicians playing on every track, no matter who the band was.
(One of my favorite segments of the movie: asking the hip record store patrons if they knew who played the instruments on these famous Motown singles. "The Pips?" one person asks. You know nobody makes that mistake about the Supremes, though.)
I think this attitude is ahistorical, among other things, but that's a discussion for another time. The point is that, while it's OK to acknowledge the genius of, say, What's Goin' On (one of my five my favorite albums ever, not that anyone will ever guess the other four in their entirety), or even of some Smokey Robinson (because he wrote those songs himself, you know), that's all supposed to have happened despite the rigid control Berry Gordy held over his label. We're supposed to scorn the comportment lessons he forced on his female singing acts, and the simplified dance steps he assigned to groups like the Temptations. I've seen it said that he was catering to white folks by dumbing down black music, and I'm not saying those criticisms might not have a point.
Too much of music discussion is about establishing cred rather than the experience of pleasure.
I grew up listening to my Dad sing along with the radio, which was always set to "oldies" stations (though I'm not sure they called it that, yet). He had a natural rich baritone -- used to sing in the church choir -- and an impressive falsetto, too. I was sad to notice, my last trip home, that he has finally lost his high notes. But back in the day, he did a mean Smoky Robinson and the Miracles, I'll tell you. "Shop Around" was his absolute favorite song, which is ironic given he married (and is still married to) the first girl he dated in college.
Just for the record, "Heat Wave" is mine.
If I wanted to, I could excuse my fondness for Motown on growing up with my Dad, on growing up in Michigan, so near that Detroit sound. But I don't want to make excuses for it. Of course my Dad was a huge influence in this case, because without him, I wouldn't have been exposed to it. But he also exposed me to the Beach Boys, and the Beatles, and Bob Dylan, and none of those folks have the same effect on me. And I didn't grow up in Detroit, I grew up in East Lansing. There's a lot more to Michigan than Detroit, and with my relatives in Chicago, that was the city that had the pull, to me.
G. has been wondering what songs it is that I'll sing along to no matter what, because he's hoping to hear me at full throat someday. It's hard, because I'm terribly shy about performing in general, and singing in particular. It's not that I have a bad voice, not at all. It's more complicated than that, and again, this might not be the place to go into detail about it. My "must sing" song list is also eclectic and elusive (I'll tell you some other surefire songs another time, too). But Steven's known the answer for a while now, because he's been in the car with me on long road trips. Somewhere between Kalamazoo and Gary, Indiana, all the radio stations drop out except one or two. There's a country station, and something else, and an "oldies" station with a huge signal. Driving to my brother's wedding may have been the first inkling he had that this was the music that I couldn't resist.
Whenever I'm with him
Something inside
Starts to burnin'
And I'm filled with desire
Could it be the devil in me
Or is this the way love's supposed to be…
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-01-22 09:10 pm (UTC)Don't tell, or I'll loose my "Gothick Membership Carde" [grins] -- but I really like Marvin Gaye, especially, "Got To Give It Up," a song very close to my heart.
Since I got into jazz and blues in high school, liking motown is not weird, to me. Since I don't really like where jazz went in the 60's (that would be into orbit!), liking motown seems a natural progression, esp. as ragtime, blues, and jazz were "popular" music in it's most essential sense -- made by the people -- from the get-go. Motown, albeit that it is made *for the people*, is still more the heir of the rags and stops of Storyville than the weird atonal crap jazz has become.
"I used to go out to parties and stand around
'Cause I was too nervous to really get down
And my body yearned to be free
So I got up on the floor and found someone to choose me
No more standin' along the side walls
Now I've got myself together, baby and I'm havin' a ball
Long as you prove it there's always a chance
Somebody watches, I'm gonna make romance
With your body, ooo baby, you dance all night
Get down and prove it, feel all right."
Oh, and I like P-funk too. So there! :P
no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 02:50 am (UTC)Dammit woman!!!
Date: 2004-01-23 04:23 pm (UTC)You know when you're not in the car, I've been trying to find a good oldies station to surprise you with. I think KFRC is the only one. Kiss-FM is a great R&B/soul station, but you rarely get to hear 60's Motown.
Oh and BTW zille,
Come on out of the closet baby. You can be a funky goth! Although, I did have the excuse of being black, I've still run into my fair share since my late 80's/early 90's club days in Cleveland. I've even converted a few.
Make my funk the P-funk,
G.
NiN, Ministry, Al Green, and early Stevie Wonder fan.
Hey, who says Motown is supposed to be a guilty pleasure???
Date: 2004-01-23 11:08 pm (UTC)Except that is that if you are interested in working with that shyness about singing, I know just the guy for you. The only trouble is that he isn't cheap.