A Culture in Motion
CELEBRATING THE MOTORTOWN REVUE, 60 YEARS ON
When warfare was the way of life and Vikings challenged all nations for world mastery…
For those in Detroit with tickets for the entertainment offered at the Fox Theatre over 1963’s November 16-17 weekend, there was a “massive, exciting spectacle” that was “a miracle of bravery,” in which a man’s strength “was in his good right arm.” Plus, there were vestal virgins.
All that was on screen in Erik The Conqueror, the 90-minute Viking movie which Fox patrons could enjoy as a bonus to that Saturday and Sunday’s main attraction: the Motortown Revue. Mind you, the latter was also an impressive exercise in spectacle and Miracles, not to mention the skilful right-arm management of microphones.
History documented by the Detroit River
And if there were virgins among the troupe of youngsters selling their songs to the Fox’s capacity crowd, well, Motown usually had chaperones to accompany them, at least when they ventured beyond their hometown.
Today, many of those who stroll along Detroit’s riverfront will know nothing of Erik The Conqueror, but will have ample opportunity to learn about the Motortown Revue. Just east of the Renaissance Center, the Motown Museum has installed a series of stand-alone panels along the river walkway, all showcasing the history of the music company’s celebrated cross-country package tours under the title of “A Culture in Motion.”
The museum is marking the 60th anniversary of the Motor Town Special (as the first such on-the-road adventure was called) with the support of the Detroit River Conservancy and of Sony Music, which owns the Jobete Music song catalogue. There are eight panels which offer explanatory prose, vintage photographs, postcard images and QR codes linked to songs.
“It’s really our way of sharing a little bit of Detroit history, a little bit of Motown history, throughout the community,” Motown Museum chairwoman/CEO Robin Terry told the Detroit News upon the project’s opening on June 21. “This is how they began to spread the magic of what became the Motown sound across the country, and then even begin to break down barriers as they did what they did best.” The riverside exhibit runs to October 31.
‘BEANS’ MAKES HIS MARK
Of course, the Motown roadshows are among the best-known aspects of Hitsville history, evoked in every autobiography by its stars, and in much else besides. The museum has credited a number of those sources in its own website presentation of “A Culture in Motion,” including the biography of a principal figure in the revue’s development, Beans Bowles.
He was an experienced, savvy musician who’d toured with Illinois Jacquet and Lionel Hampton, and played on some of Motown’s earliest recordings. When assigned to its talent management wing under Esther Edwards, he advocated for a package tour featuring the firm’s own acts. “Barney [Ales] had mentioned something similar in the past,” wrote Berry Gordy in To Be Loved, “but I hadn’t thought the time was right.” By 1962, it was.
The Motor Town Special embarks in 1962
Ales’ idea had stemmed from his time at Warner Bros. Records, where a number of that label’s acts – primarily those who were also stars of television – were bundled together. “They sent them on a bus across the country to promote the TV shows,” he told me.
Motown’s founder had some insights himself, having promoted the “Gordy Star Attractions Show” in and around Detroit during early 1959, presenting Marv Johnson, Eddie Holland, Mable John, the Rayber Voices, the Fideli-Tones and the Miracles, with MC Joe Howard.
Three years later, the Motor Town Special was born, featuring the Miracles, Marv Johnson, Mary Wells, the Marvelettes, Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, the Vandellas, the Contours and Sammy Ward, all MC’ed by Bill Murry and backed by Choker Campbell’s band. They played the Howard Theatre in Washington, D.C. for a week at the end of October 1962, then hit America’s highways with an itinerary booked by General Artists Corp. from Boston to Pittsburgh, from November 2 to December 17. This included a week at New York’s Apollo, during which the shows were caught on tape and edited into Recorded Live: The Motor-Town Revue, Vol. 1, an album released in April 1963.
“It was too long, too hard and too big,” Beans Bowles remembered in Fingertips – The Untold Story. “We had crammed 45 people onto one bus. Of course tensions ran high. By the time the tour was over, there wasn’t a single good nerve left among the musicians and crew.”
BACK TO THE DAILY GRIND
Yet the financial and promotional results were too bountiful to ignore. “The ‘Motor Town Revue,’ a music-comedy package of diskers, will begin the first leg of a swing through the Midwest and the East,” reported trade paper Variety on April 17, 1963, with kick-off at Chicago’s Regal Theatre two days later. “The current tour includes one nighters as well as engagements of one week or longer.” The concluding date was that November weekend at the Fox in Detroit, with eight shows over two days, grossing a remarkable $42,000 ($400,000 today).
As with the Apollo performances the previous December, the Detroit dates were recorded, edited and released on LP as Recorded Live: The Motortown Revue, Vol. 2 in April 1964.
The Supremes at (where else?) the Apollo
“After the tour,” notes the last panel of the Motown Museum’s riverside recounting of history, “the artists returned to the daily grind. The Revue succeeded in introducing Motown to new fans who were now hungry for more hits. Back at Hitsville, the artists were sent to Studio A to record songs written for them in their absence. Requests for solo performances came in from the cities they’d passed through.”
“A Culture in Motion” concludes, “Through the Motortown Revue, Motown found its formula for success, achieving the visibility needed to launch the independent label to the top of the national music scene.”
The music tracks linked on the walkway panels are among Motown’s best-known hits, and all are studio versions with the exception of Little Stevie Wonder’s Regal-recorded “Fingertips (Pt. 2).” Which begs the question of whether more of this unique on-the-road legacy deserves to be made available today.
The Motown archive holds a multitude of live performances from a variety of venues. Some of these tracks have surfaced over time, particularly towards the end of the 1990s and into the noughties, when previously-unheard concert material was leveraged into new CD compilations. For instance, one of the Temptations’ earliest live takes of “My Girl” (at the Fox on December 31, 1964) was part of their Lost and Found entry, You’ve Got To Earn It, in 1999. That same year, the Four Tops’ Lost and Found release, Breaking Through, included their Apollo performance of “I’m Falling For You” – with Billy Eckstine, no less – from August 1965.
AN APOLLO ‘TREASURE TROVE’
When an expanded, 2CD edition of the Supremes’ Where Did Our Love Go came out in 2004, it added seven tracks from their turn at Detroit’s 20 Grand in August 1964. Subsequent sets followed suit, such as 2012’s I Hear A Symphony (19 tracks from the Roostertail club in Detroit, September ’66) and 2018’s The Supremes Sing Holland/Dozier/Holland (14 tracks from New York’s Copacabana, May 1967).
Perhaps the most significant reissue of in-concert repertoire was 2005’s The Motortown Revue Collection. This 4CD set comprised the 1962 and 1963 albums cited above, together with 1965’s Recorded Live: Motortown Revue In Paris and 1969’s Motortown Revue Live. (It’s also now available on streaming services, as are most of the other albums referenced here.)
Four albums, one joyful set
“There is a treasure trove of Motown at the Apollo,” confirms Universal Music’s Andy Skurow, who did tape vault research for The Motortown Revue Collection, “with longer sets by each of the acts that did a song or two on the album. For instance, Marvin Gaye can be heard singing ‘What Kind Of Fool Am I’ and ‘Stubborn Kind Of Fellow,’ but on the show, he opened with ‘The Lonesome Road’ and followed ‘Stubborn’ with ‘The Christmas Song.’ ” (The last of these was issued on 1990’s The Marvin Gaye Collection.)
“The Marvelettes do two songs on Recorded Live: The Motor-Town Revue, Vol. 1,” continues Skurow, “but they do five more in the set, which includes ‘Beechwood 4-5789,’ ‘Playboy’ and ‘Twistin’ Postman.’ ”
When Motown recorded its Revue at the Fox theatre in December 1968, the subsequent live album included two tracks by Blinky – but there was a third: her version of “God Bless The Child.” Skurow explains, “We wanted to hear it as a possibility for 2019’s Heart Full Of Soul: The Motown Anthology – and it simply blew us away. When the original Motortown Revue Live album was released, time on vinyl was limited, so you can understand why the track got cut, but when you hear how strong the performance is, you can’t imagine not releasing it.”
Eleven years after The Motortown Revue Collection, the discovery of more tapes from the 1965 Olympia concert led to a 3LP deluxe vinyl reissue of Recorded Live: Motortown Revue In Paris, with 13 extra tracks. Later still, unissued items from the ’68 Fox show were added to Motown Unreleased 1968 (Part 1), a 2018 digital-only compilation. These were by the Originals, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and Stevie Wonder.
Much else exists. Motown’s renowned “Battle of the Stars” contests at Detroit’s Graystone Ballroom were recorded, such as the 1964 edition which features Eddie Holland singing “Jamie,” “I Like Everything About You” and “Leaving Here,” and Liz Lands performing “Midnight Johnny,” “Ol’ Man River” and “Please Send Me Someone To Love.”
Some “Battle” tracks have been issued, including five tracks by the Velvelettes on a U.K. anthology in 2004, and seven by the Supremes on 2010’s expanded Meet The Supremes. Even so, there is more in storage, including performances taped at the 20 Grand and the Roostertail by the likes of Chris Clark, the Elgins, Yvonne Fair, Brenda Holloway, the Monitors, Bobby Taylor, Tammi Terrell and Jr. Walker.
Some of the challenges associated with releasing this repertoire – were that ever to happen – will be contractual, some will be audio quality-related, and others may never be resolved. But perhaps there’s a chance of more Erik The Conqueror-like acts of bravery amid the Motown files, to miraculously capture 21st century audiences like the on-screen version did so many years ago at the Fox.
You could even call that a culture in motion.