Detroit’s Soulful Anniversary

21 YEARS OF SHARED KNOWLEDGE AND OPINION

How has the Motown Records community been evolving in the 21st century?

      And by “community,” I mean the people who worked to create and drive the extraordinary music – and the business – of Motown under Berry Gordy’s leadership, and the many fans and followers worldwide touched by that music, who share in and sustain its legacy to this day.

      Those in the first group are, sadly and inevitably, departing. The last two years have robbed us of some of the most-loved and admired individuals, including Mary Wilson and Lamont Dozier. As a result, some of those in the second group – younger, perhaps – feel an obligation to keep the faith, as well as to honour the departed.

Lowell Boileau (left) and Ralph Terrana

      Hitsville history has been well-served during the past 22 years. Part of this is attributable to the Motown Museum, as it’s become clearer about its mission and more effective in its execution. Also, since acquiring Motown Records some 25 years ago, Universal Music has managed the catalogue in a serious, satisfying manner. For profit, to be sure, but with a sense of responsibility not always evident among other firms which own important legacies of 20th century recorded music.

      The segue of the music industry into the streaming era has had an impact, too. The easy access to Motown’s treasures via such platforms as Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube means that the listening needs of the young and curious, as well as the already-devoted, can be met.

      The internet has obviously been a significant force in uniting and sustaining the Hitsville community, including social media. On Twitter, for instance, you would expect to see Diana Ross (161,000 followers currently) and Smokey Robinson (125,000) but present, too, are the likes of Cornelius Grant, Claudette Robinson and Dennis Coffey.

      Perhaps the most evocative – and sometimes provocative – destination for the Motown community has been the SoulfulDetroit online forum, which recently celebrated its 21st anniversary, as longtime site moderator Ralph Terrana reminded me late last year.

      The forum’s shared knowledge and opinion about music made in Detroit in (mostly) the 1960s is unmatched elsewhere. In addition to continuing “threads” about every imaginable, related topic, there are a number of “webisodes” – stand-alone, illustrated features about individual Motor City heroes and heroines, recording studios and record labels. There is a subsidiary Motown section, and within that, a Diana Ross & Supremes “room,” devoted to Detroit’s universal darlings.

‘THE SECOND COMING’

      Motown has been a huge audience magnet over the years, of course, and Terrana’s tenure with the company as studio manager and producer (among other duties) bestowed credibility on SoulfulDetroit soon after its debut in October 2001. Equally important, if not more so, was the reputation of his pre-Motown recording studio, Tera Shirma, and the singers, musicians and producers who used it.

      “When I first went on the forum,” remembers Terrana, “there was one string, there were maybe six or seven topics, and there were maybe 20 people who participated. They welcomed me like I was the second coming of Christ – especially in Britain. I didn’t realise the music’s reputation over there, so they were anxious to pick my brains about the various Detroit music things, and that’s how I got involved.”

      The SoulfulDetroit concept originated with Glasgow-born David Meikle, whose passion for the Northern Soul output of the Motor City was, he says, attributable to his first hero, Edwin Starr. “After meeting some guys from Manchester in Torquay in 1969, I began going to the Twisted Wheel in January 1970, and saw Edwin perform there three times.”

Soulful Detroit’s Motown Forum

      Amassing a huge collection of soul singles and albums, Meikle developed an interest in the places where the music was made. He adds, “2648 West Grand Boulevard was responsible for that!” A visit to Detroit in 1999 was the first of many, and he began documenting the city’s various studio locations. “I photographed them all, even the vacant lots, as a number had been destroyed after the 1967 riots and beyond.”

      Meikle then contacted Lowell Boileau, a Michigan fine-arts painter and photographer who was graphically tracking the area’s decline and destruction on a website, The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit, to gauge interest in attaching his music-related material to it. “The principles were going to be the same: a photograph of each building and some text attached to it.”

      The idea appealed to Boileau, who proposed a stand-alone site and became co-founder of SoulfulDetroit. “He had internet skills which I did not have,” notes Meikle. “He also had the infrastructure to build the site. It was still the early days on the web in 2001.” At that time, Meikle also connected with an expat teacher, Graham Finch, “who had interviewed dozens of music people in Detroit for a proposed book. As a result, I was given access to some incredibly influential people.” Among them: Betty LaVette, Richard “Popcorn” Wylie, Robert Bateman and Motor City music matriarch, Johnnie Mae Matthews.

      Terrana’s involvement began when local record producer Mike Theodore spotted the site and got in touch. “Mike said, ‘You know, they’re doing a story on Tera Shirma, you should check it out.’ And so I did. The article was really nice, but there were some inconsistencies. I saw that there was an email address for David Meikle, so I thought I’d give him the right information. He was just blown away by the contact – perhaps he thought I’d been dead for years! Also, I never knew the reputation that Tera Shirma had over in the U.K. – in fact, I wasn’t even sure if I knew about Northern Soul.” The outcome was a fuller ‘webisode’ about the studio, and soon afterwards, his SoulfulDetroit participation with Meikle and Boileau.

      At the beginning, Terrana says, “it was just to moderate. I was able to bring in people from Detroit like Al Kent, Clay McMurray, Dennis Coffey. I was doing like a producing thing along with the moderating thing, it worked, and it went on like that for quite a while.” More importantly, the site increasingly found an audience. Within a year of its launch, notes Meikle, “we had 1,500 members, countless lurkers and one million hits.”

      In addition to those cited above, the SoulfulDetroit community has, at one time or another, included Motown musicians (the likes of Bob Babbitt, Eddie Willis, Jack Ashford, Joe Hunter), group members (Chico Leverett, Katherine Anderson, Cal Street, Damon Harris, Susaye Greene), soloists (Frances Nero, Jimmy Ruffin, Chris Clark) and backroom believers (Weldon McDougal III, Deke Richards, Bob Olhsson) – to name but a few.

GENTLEMANLY CONDUCT, UNCONTROLLED RAGE

      Sometimes, agrees Terrana, there was bickering. “The Supremes seemed to be a lightning rod for that.” Meikle remembers Motown engineer Mike McLean as another combustible source: “A time bomb of gentlemanly conduct, followed by uncontrolled rage, is the only way I can describe it.” Still, McLean’s insights into the mechanics – literal and metaphorical – of Motown were unique.

      Occasionally, there was internal trouble, and in 2006, Meikle left SoulfulDetroit, relinquishing all his rights. He says today that he was upset by those who were allowed “to infest the forum, spoil the content and bully the music men.” Terrana remembers “a group of people, trying to be a hostile takeover.” Neither cares to go into detail, and both prefer to recall the positive aspects of their shared experience. “I kinda missed his counsel,” concludes Terrana. “I realise that I also was an idiot to drop it and walk away,” observes Meikle.

Boileau and Meikle: honouring Darrell Banks

      One particular positive memory: when the site’s principals raised money to mark the hitherto-anonymous Detroit grave of revered singer Darrell (“Open The Door To Your Heart”) Banks, providing it with a memorial bench in 2004. Fans worldwide donated $1,500.

      Today, SoulfulDetroit continues to illuminate the city’s music history, and encourage the community conversation. A perfect example is a current thread on member Darin Sheffer’s recently-acquired stash of Motown-related memorabilia, including vintage paperwork and reel-to-reel audio tapes. All this apparently belonged to a son of the company’s onetime musical director, Maurice King. “The majority of [the tapes] are of Maurice rehearsing songs and coaching the artists,” writes Sheffer. “It’s a behind the scenes listen to a part of the Motown workings most of us have never heard.”

      Ralph Terrana spends less time moderating the website than he did two decades ago, but maintains a good relationship with Lowell Boileau. “We get together every few months, to talk about any forum business. He’s an interesting artist with a unique style in the way he paints. He was in the Peace Corps, and he’s an old hippy, like me. We hit it off.”

      Boileau remains sole owner of SoulfulDetroit, with some of its functions handled by his son, Nic. Income derives from membership fees and forum advertising, by Terrana’s telling. “Lowell said he made $1,700 or something like that [in 2021] – way down from normal. So he doesn’t make a lot of money, and he gives me a stipend, usually every quarter.” Terrana laughs: “It’s definitely not about getting rich!”

      The moderator’s guess of current membership is a few thousand. “But according to Lowell, the real numbers come from the lurkers,” says Terrana. “One November night, we had 50,000 guests. There are all these people lurking: they take a look, then go away, they don’t join for whatever reason. That [scale] really took me by surprise. It’s getting to the point where it’s really huge.”

      On that basis, it seems that the Motown community is, indeed, being well served by the 21st century.