Music, Moments, Milestones
A YEAR IN REVIEW, AN ANNIVERSARY TO REMEMBER
It was a year of which he could be proud.
His first Top 10 success on America’s pop charts as a songwriter. His first BMI award for another, earlier hit. An R&B Top 10 entry with the first recording from his own company, which started up in January. Three of his management clients in a summertime show near his hometown, headlined by one of the world’s most famous bands. And at year’s end, another Top 10 pop hit, which he’d also written and produced, on the way.
Yet for all that excitement in 1959, Berry Gordy Jr. could not possibly have imagined how the world, six decades later, would celebrate his subsequent labours and achievements.
For Motown, it’s been quite some 60th anniversary year, perhaps even broader and more resonant than the 50th. Its superstars continue to magnetise concert crowds, its music continues to be played and bought, its songs continue to influence and inspire. There was the release of an authorised film documentary, a network TV special, and another series of a Netflix show built on Motown melodies. The Temptations’ musical opened bountifully on Broadway, and although the London production of Motown The Musical reached the end of its run in April, the touring version still rolls around the U.K., as theatre-goers to Oxford’s New Theatre tonight can assure us.
In Detroit, there was another step taken towards the big-budget expansion of the Motown Museum, as well as a Motown 60 gala, the completion of a huge Stevie Wonder mural on a performing arts centre, and the naming of a street as David Ruffin Avenue.
Beyond the Motor City, there were sites newly honouring Motown and its offspring: the Marvin Gaye Park in Washington, D.C., the Marvin Gaye Post Office in Los Angeles, a Grammy Museum-curated exhibit at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas – and, of course, Berry Gordy Square in Hollywood, so named in respect of his western adventures.
There was the arrival of new Motown clothing, and – you lucky people – the launch of two Lionel Richie perfumes. In addition, you could mail letters bearing Marvin Gaye stamps, and zip to the post office on a What’s Going On skateboard. Smokey Robinson was out there, too, repromoting his line of wines and his Amazon holiday album, Christmas Everyday. In addition, no fewer than four new books by Motown music makers were published.
Perhaps the most significant change affecting Motown in its sixth decade has been in how people enjoy recorded music. Now digital delivery is dominant, with today’s stars capable of generating billions of streams – unlike the time that Gordy and Robinson travelled on icy Michigan roads in January 1959 to collect freshly-minted copies of Tamla 101 from an upstate pressing plant. Yet “The Sound of Young America” still rings true: Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” was among Spotify’s 500 most-streamed tracks, ancient or modern, in 2018, and is likely to have earned the same credit this year.
There may have been fewer physical packages – whether straight reissues or material from the vaults – of classic Motown than in the past. Or maybe not. Universal Music was certainly happy to serve the consumer appetite for vinyl in 2019. Similarly, revenues generated by music on YouTube and comparable outlets has encouraged the creation of new videos for tracks previously without them. Universal kicked off its “Never Made” project with a clip for Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” filmed in Michigan.
All in all, then, a busy 12 months, reinforcing the respect and recognition – OK, the love – for this American institution and its founder, at home and abroad. Here’s a summary in more detail. If there are omissions, please forgive: it has been a remarkable 60th.
ON STAGE AND SCREEN
Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations made its Broadway debut in March, attracting positive reviews, 12 Tony Award nominations (although only one win) and audiences aplenty. Since then, it’s become one of the Great White Way’s bigger hits, setting a box-office record for the Imperial Theatre in December, with $1.7 million in ticket sales. “The musical is a surprising force that gives us more depth,” said the Temptations’ Otis Williams in June, “more than just the thing of singing and dancing with flat shoes on and the four-headed microphone.”
Motown 60: A Grammy Celebration was broadcast by the CBS-TV network on April 21, featuring turns by Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, John Legend and a gaggle of new music stars. The two-hour, sometimes-hokey lovefest also used on-screen interviews with the company’s artists and songwriters for historical reflection. Plus, Thelma Houston’s performance of “Don’t Leave Me This Way” was “a bit of a jaw-dropper,” according to Variety. With 6.8 million viewers, the ratings were good. It was bested by 60 Minutes, but beat “Disney Night” on American Idol – where one of the judges was Lionel Richie.
Motown Magic, the kiddie cartoon series made by Netflix with the help of Smokey Robinson as executive music producer, returned in June with a second season. As before, classic Motown songs were featured in each episode about the adventures of eight-year-old Ben and his friends; as always, Netflix keeps viewing numbers to itself.
Hitsville: The Making of Motown was the much-anticipated documentary from British filmmakers Ben and Gabe Turner, created by their firm, Fulwell 73, for Universal Music. There were special Hitsville playdates in Los Angeles and Detroit during August, then the doc moved to the Showtime TV channel. In Britain, it was seen in cinemas nationwide in September and October, followed by release on DVD. In particular, reviewers cheered the chemistry between Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson, sparking off each other in the Snakepit, but the conspicuous absence of Diana Ross was also noted. “Sunshine on a cloudy day,” wrote The Economist (no less) of the movie just this week.
ON THE ROAD
Among the artists who kept faith with concert crowds near and far during 2019 were Stevie, Diana, Smokey, Lionel, Martha, the Temps and the Tops. Wonder and Richie even performed on the same summertime bill at London’s Hyde Park.
For her part, Ross made the year a 75th birthday celebration, playing dates across the U.S. “covered in yards and yards of red satin and tulle” (as one critic observed) and singing her heart out. “Diamond Diana” also brought back the movie about her storm-soaked 1983 show at New York’s Central Park, with select U.S. and U.K. cinema screenings.
The Jacksons were equally energetic, performing in Australasia, Latin America, the U.K. and Continental Europe. “The harmonies and vocal interplay on a medley that included ‘I Want You Back,’ ‘ABC,’ ‘Dancing Machine,’ ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’ and ‘I’ll Be There’ were high in quality and rich in nostalgia,” extolled one British reviewer.
Motown’s less-celebrated acts made their presence felt, too, particularly at this year’s Detroit A-Go-Go in October. They included Chris Clark, the Velvelettes, Carolyn Crawford, the Elgins and the Contours, all serving as “a vivid reminder of just how deeply [Detroit] music has affected people around the globe,” noted the Detroit Free Press.
BOOKS AND MERCHANDISE
Three of this year’s four Motown books came in both physical and digital form. Personal tales jostled with the professional, spiced with drama, defeat and triumph. Mary Wilson’s Supreme Glamour was the most straightforward, visually devoting most of its attention to the stunning costumes (and designers) associated with the group’s glittering career, while Claudette’s Miraculous Motown Adventure was a charming children’s cartoon tale created by the former Mrs. Robinson.
Eddie and Brian Holland’s Come and Get These Memories and Lamont Dozier’s How Sweet It Is were more intriguing and provocative. Both contain abundant anecdotes and explanations about the memorable music they created as H/D/H. The authors are also candid about themselves, and occasionally catty about the trio’s eventual separation. How much of their total income, one is tempted to ask, did they spend on lawyers?
Lionel Richie, by contrast, must have recently assigned some of his earnings to publicists, or at least the one(s) who helped him shape the puffery about his new perfume line, called Hello. “I’ve always looked at fragrances as a way to express yourself,” the musician said recently, “so I wanted to take my creative expression one step further and decided to craft my very own fragrances.” Added the man nicknamed “Skeet” when in the Commodores, “While working through this process, I realised there are many similarities between songwriting and fragrance creation – the notes have to work together.”
Selling something other than music is hardly new for Richie: 35 years ago, he cut a sponsorship deal with Pepsi-Cola that the fizzy drinks firm claimed was “the largest and most comprehensive agreement ever made between a performing artist and a corporation.” And in 2018, he got into bed (sorry) with J.C. Penney for a line of sheets, towels and pillowcases, branded Lionel Richie Home. Just to be close to you?
Closer to Hitsville’s home is Carhartt WIP, a “workwear” manufacturer founded in Dearborn in 1889. Last month, it introduced a new line of clothing, dubbed a “capsule collection,” which features various Motown-related images, including a couple of the Snakepit and its occupants. There’s even a beanie “paying homage” (as the publicity puts it) to the cap worn by Marvin Gaye on his Let’s Get It On album sleeve – although personally, I’d rather have a T-shirt bearing the “Superman” cover art of his Super Hits LP.
THE MUSIC
As it happens, Gaye was the best-represented artist in Universal Music’s release schedule for Motown 60. In March, there came an expanded, digital edition of his 1965 album A Tribute To The Great Nat King Cole, with the original 12-track mono mix, previously unissued outtakes with alternate vocals, and a number of Tin Pan Alley standards.
Also issued in March was You’re The Man, a collection of Gaye’s 1972 solo and non-soundtrack recordings, put together for the first time. It was released in vinyl and digital versions, the former with liner notes by David (Divided Soul) Ritz. The double-album was promoted as the singer/songwriter’s “shelved follow-up” to What’s Going On, an arguable but media-friendly angle which generated lots of coverage.
The third Gaye package of 2019 was What’s Going On Live, making its first appearance on vinyl (with separate black and turquoise editions) and as a standalone CD. The contents represented the only concert performance of Gaye’s entire masterwork, recorded in Washington, D.C. in 1972. The tracks were previously made available on compact disc in 2001, coupled with the original What’s Going On album.
Vinyl was also used for offerings such as the Jackson 5’s Greatest Hits, a rare quadrophonic mix originally available only in Japan, and two – technically not Motown – albums: the Broadway cast recording of Ain’t Too Proud, and Diana Ross’ Wonderful Christmas Time. Meanwhile, online store The Sound of Vinyl was the exclusive source for five “Motown In Mono” reissues: The Fabulous Miracles, The Temptations Sing Smokey, the Four Tops’ Reach Out, Diana Ross & the Supremes’ Reflections and the Marvelettes’ Sophisticated Soul.
Today’s less-favoured soundcarrier – that’s compact disc – was the medium for one of the most-anticipated Motown anthologies of any decade, Blinky’s Heart Full Of Soul, released by Real Gone/Second Disc. This 46-track set from “Motown’s Great Lost Superstar!” included her never-released Sunny and Warm album and an entire disc of previously unissued vault material. A measure of fans’ excitement was evident on the Motown subset of the Soulful Detroit website: “Free at last…free at last…thank God almighty…Blinky’s free at last!!!!”
On the other side of the world, more than 50 catalogue albums were reissued on CD by Universal Music Japan, including Brenda Holloway’s Every Little Bit Hurts, Shorty Long’s Here Comes The Judge, Yvonne Fair’s The Bitch Is Black, Earl Van Dyke & the Soul Brothers’ That Motown Sound, and the Spinners’ 2nd Time Around. In Britain, six of Jr. Walker’s 1970s albums were reprised in a 3CD set, Walk In The Night, from SoulMusic/Cherry Red.
There’s one final CD citation: Motown: The Complete No. 1s. This was the 10-disc set which first appeared for the 50th anniversary, housed in a scaled-down replica of 2648 West Grand Boulevard. Now it’s back in the same packaging, plus an extra disc with six more chart-toppers. Morever, Billboard has just named it the best boxed set of the year.
THE LEGACY
BG squared with (l-r) Mickey, Smokey and Stevie, and Claudette at back right. (Photo: Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)
And so again to Detroit, where the Motown Museum has been staging events and running partnership programmes throughout 2019 to solidify its cultural, social and political place in the city, and beyond. A founder’s day in June in honour of Esther Edwards drew more than 600 guests, including mayor Mike Duggan. With the museum, Universal Music’s contemporary Motown Records is helping to fund young musician’s careers and underwrite or “accelerate” local tech start-ups. And in early September, Berry Gordy announced a $4 million donation towards the non-profit museum’s projected $50 million expansion. The fundraising has passed the $25 million mark, according to chairwoman Robin Terry.
Then on September 22, Gordy symbolically broke ground on the upgrade, wielding a shovel in the company of Michigan’s governor and one of its U.S. senators, as well as officials from organisations and companies which have already made donations. Also present were Otis Williams, Claudette Robinson, Paul Riser and other former Motown principals, such as Suzanne de Passe and Shelly Berger.
That night, “Hitsville Honors” were handed out at Detroit’s Orchestra Hall as part of the Motown 60 weekend celebrations – and Gordy spoke about his future. Recognising the museum’s importance and ambitions, he said that it will “inspire young people to go after their dreams, as I went after mine. I have come full circle, and it’s only appropriate that in the city where my amazing fairy tale began, I should announce my retirement.”
All this, in another year of which he could be proud.
West Grand Blog, with luck, will return in 2020. In the meantime, best wishes for the holiday season. Enjoy!
’59 notes: for those curious about this edition’s introduction, the details are (in sequence) Jackie Wilson’s “Lonely Teardrops,” which reached the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending February 1; the 1958 BMI award in rhythm & blues presented for Jackie Wilson’s “To Be Loved” in New York on February 25; Marv Johnson’s “Come To Me,” first issued as Tamla 101 on January 21, then licensed for national release to United Artists Records; Marv Johnson, the Miracles and Eddie Holland, all on the bill of a show at the Windsor Arena on August 3, headlined by the Count Basie Orchestra; and Marv Johnson’s “You Got What It Takes,” climbing the Top 30 of the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending December 27.