Breaking Out of Detroit – or Not
THE HOMETOWN HITS OF HITSVILLE U.S.A.
In mid-September 1965 on the Billboard Hot 100, the Contours’ “First I Look At The Purse” could climb no higher than No. 57. In Detroit? It had just been Top 5.
Kim Weston’s “Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me A Little While)” peaked at No. 50 on the Hot 100 of November 13, 1965. In the Motor City? It went Top 10, six weeks earlier.
Kim Weston: in Detroit’s arms
Tammi Terrell and Jimmy Ruffin had similar experiences at the start of ’66. The former’s Motown debut, “I Can’t Believe You Love Me,” stalled at No. 72 on the main Billboard chart, but in Detroit, the record was a Top 10 smash. Ruffin’s “As Long As There Is L-O-V-E Love” utterly failed to make the Hot 100 that January, but spent time in the Top 10 in the home of Hitsville U.S.A.
Given that the city was a major music market – fifth largest in the U.S. – during the mid-1960s and widely recognised for breaking hits of every genre, the relative failure of those Motown records nationally seems curious. Or, considered from another perspective, it was logical that, first and foremost, Detroit radio stations, retailers and record buyers would support their hometown talent, regardless of their prospects elsewhere.
Either way, the evidence of such disparities – at least for Motown Record Corp. – appeared in 38 issues of Billboard between August 1965 and May 1966. That was when the trade magazine published city-by-city sales charts, giving readers the opportunity to compare where records were hits – or not – and how that squared with the national picture.
Detroit was one of more than a dozen cities where Billboard polled local music retailers for sales data, and organised the results into individual Top 40 charts. “It is aimed as a programming service to broadcasters within the markets,” declared the weekly in announcing the new listings, “and as a buying guide to the dealers in each of the metropolitan centers covered.”
For the first week of these charts, dated August 28, there were nine Motown singles in the Detroit Top 40 – almost 25 percent of the list. Two titles were in the Top 10 (the Temptations’ “Since I Lost My Baby,” the Miracles’ “The Tracks Of My Tears”), while the Contours’ “Purse” was one week short of its Top 5 peak.
TOP SELLERS IN TOP MARKETS
For comparison, Motown had ten singles on the national Hot 100 in that August week – 10 percent of the total. The highest-ranked was the Four Tops’ “It’s The Same Old Song” at No. 5. In the group’s hometown, the record was already on its way down.
The following week, the Detroit chart featured eight Motown entries, including Jr. Walker & the All Stars’ “Shake And Fingerpop” and Stevie Wonder’s “High Heel Sneakers.” In due course, both of those reached the local Top 20. On the Hot 100, they topped out at 29 and 59, respectively.
The hits of Detroit in Billboard, September 4, 1965
The other 15 cities which Billboard tracked for its so-called “Top Sellers in Top Markets” included Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. In a July ’66 report – ironically, a few weeks after it scrapped the local market charts – the magazine identified Detroit and Los Angeles as “the two best places in the nation in which to break a record.”
Motown must have liked the idea of city-by-city rankings, for the firm bought advertising space under the first week’s listings for two particular 45s: Tony Martin’s “The Bigger Your Heart Is (The Harder You’ll Fall)” and Richard Anthony’s “I Don’t Know What To Do.” (As it turned out, neither record troubled the Top 40 in any of the 16 cities, nor the Hot 100.)
Billboard’s declared intention of making the new charts useful to radio programmers was logical, although stations in each market would already have had their own retail contacts to measure records’ local popularity. Even so, the performance elsewhere of new and current releases was valuable information for broadcasters.
“Radio is the most prolific medium of exposure today,” Detroit retailer Lou Salesin of Mumford Music told the trade weekly in the spring of ’66. “When radio supports a record, so do the kids. When the station stops playing a number, the kids stop buying.” And Detroit had some powerful outlets, including Top 40 titan WKNR (with DJs Bob Green and Scott Regen, among others) and R&B-formatted WCHB (Ernie Durham, LeBaron Taylor).
Dearborn-based WKNR (“Keener 13”) had a tight, 31-record playlist, but when it added a new release, local sales action was guaranteed, as with the above-mentioned Tammi Terrell and Kim Weston titles. “WKNR, by virtue of their dominance in the market, was clearly the most important station,” Scott Regen told me for Motown: The Sound of Young America. But Inkster-based WCHB was often the first to air Motown releases – as it did, for instance, with the Contours and Jimmy Ruffin 45s cited above. “We play more of it and we try to play it before [competitors] do,” programme director Bill Curtis advised Billboard. “But it’s the most exciting music in the world right now and nothing will ever take its place.”
For Motown, its place on the Detroit Top 40 of Billboard’s “Top Sellers in Top Markets” amounted to 36 hits during the chart’s nine-month lifespan. When the feature was scrapped, the magazine did not appear to explain, although it might have been the result of personnel changes. The specific methodology was developed by market research chief Tom Noonan; he resigned in September 1965 to join Columbia Records. (Maybe he looked at the purse?)
Now, some data. Here follows a selective list of Motown singles which reached the Top 40 of Billboard’s Detroit sales chart in 1965-66, with peak positions there and, for comparison, on the national countdown.
ARTIST/TITLE DETROIT HOT 100
The Contours, “First I Look At The Purse” 5 57
Jr. Walker & the All Stars, “Shake And Fingerpop” 19 29
Stevie Wonder, “High Heel Sneakers” 17 59
Kim Weston, “Take Me In Your Arms” 8 50
The Temptations, “Don’t Look Back” 13 83
Jimmy Ruffin, “As Long As There Is L-O-V-E Love” 9 120
The Monitors, “Say You” 17 –
Tammi Terrell, “I Can’t Believe You Love Me” 9 72
The Elgins, “Darling Baby” 39 72
Martha & the Vandellas, “My Baby Loves Me” 3 22
Kim Weston, “Helpless” 22 56
The Temptations, “Get Ready” 11 29