The Young Folks

A POLITICAL ENDORSEMENT IN MUSIC

Even though it had left Detroit, Motown Records helped to elect the city’s first black mayor.

Coleman Young was that achiever, a formidable politician who had spent eight years in the Michigan state legislature before deciding to run for City Hall in 1973, and who then went on to defeat a former police commissioner (who was white) in a polarised, crime-ridden metropolis.

The narrowness of Young’s victory that November underscored how every component of his campaign was important, how every supporter made a difference – including Berry Gordy Jr. and his father, who jointly donated $800 (the equivalent of almost $5,000 today) to the cause.

Then there were Motown’s Originals, who recorded two new songs created to promote Young’s candidacy, two tunes designed to spur listeners to pay attention to the race, and to make a decision for a different kind of future for Detroit.

Forty-eight years later, “Young Train” and “Young Ideas” hardly seem like obvious choices for commercial release, but all credit to Britain’s MD Records for making them available on vinyl this summer. The original Motown pressings were rare enough in their time, only circulated as promotional items, not for sale at retail.

“A couple of things brought about the release,” says MD’s Mark Anderson. “It’s a great track, and captures a moment in history that is still valid, if not more so, today. And it’s a great ’70s dance track: the blend of smooth vocals, bongos and funky, guitar-driven insistent backing – very reminiscent of a train – just needed to be out to a wider audience.”

Once the tracks were licensed from Motown’s parent, Universal Music, Anderson remembers receiving the means for their manufacture. “It was such a great feeling, listening to the original masters for the first time. The quality was, as you’d expect, excellent right through.” The material has been contracted for a period of time, he said, rather than by volume. “We took the decision to press 1,000 copies, which, in today’s terms, is a reasonable amount.” Many of MD’s other releases are 300-500 copies, Anderson adds.

For such recognition, the late authors of “Young Train” and “Young Ideas” would be grateful: Esther Edwards, the Motown matriarch; Robert Bullock, her son; and Gordy’s first star, Marv Johnson. Unfortunately, there’s little or nothing in the history books on the background of this endorsement, and I missed the opportunity to ask the Originals’ Freddie Gorman about it during two separate interviews with him, years ago. He did reveal then that the group, having “problems and difficulties” with Motown during the ’70s, could have left in 1972, but chose to stay loyal.

ELATED TO BE CHOSEN

Young’s mayoral candidacy became formal in May 1973, but his acquaintance with Esther Edwards’ politician husband, George, will have predated that. Both Democrats served in the Michigan assembly at the same time, Young in the Senate, Edwards in the House. “Young Train” and “Young Ideas” were recorded in the autumn of ’73, produced by Robert Bullock, and arranged by guitarist Robert White, one of the stars of the Snakepit. The lead voices are those of Ty Hunter and Hank Dixon.

State politics were familiar terrain for other Motown employees. Tape librarian Fran Maclin recalled in her autobiography how Esther Edwards approached her when George ran for re-election. “I would ask several of my girlfriends who were loyal Motown fans,” she wrote. “They were elated to be chosen to campaign for Mr. Edwards.” Years earlier, Berry Gordy had campaigned, too, writing a song (“Let George Do It”) and persuading Jackie Wilson to record it for use in Edwards’ re-election drive.

By contrast, the stars of Hitsville U.S.A. were advised in the 1960s to keep their political preferences to themselves, at least in public. The exception was the Supremes’ unfortunate endorsement in 1968 of White House candidate Hubert Humphrey: in the general election, he lost to Richard Nixon. (More about Motown’s political activities over the years can be found here.)

For Coleman Young, Esther Edwards’ support extended beyond the campaign. After he was elected on November 6, 1973, she became co-chairperson of the inaugural concert committee, and arranged for none other than Diana Ross to perform (free of charge) at the event at Detroit’s Masonic Auditorium in early January. Edwards spoke then to the Detroit Free Press of Young’s “forthrightness, his independence, his ability to function and get results. Of all mayors and all potential mayors, I think he has the rare and unique quality to relate to all people, no matter what their strata.”

Peter Benjaminson experienced that forthrightness for himself. The author of The Story of Motown, as well as biographies of Florence Ballard, Mary Wells and Rick James, was city/county bureau chief for the Detroit Free Press when Young ran for mayor. He was responsible for reporting on the business of City Hall, but not the state legislature. “I was somewhat surprised when Young won,” Benjaminson told me recently, but that was as much because he didn’t cover the campaign.

KICKED OUT OF CITY HALL

Young was striving to succeed incumbent mayor Roman Gribbs. “I had covered Gribbs very aggressively during his administration,” recalls Benjaminson, “and he disliked me intensely. I naturally continued covering Mayor Young the same way, doing several stories he didn’t like about scandals in his administration. Finally, he announced that he was kicking me out of City Hall. My boss said he’d back me all the way if I wanted to stay there, but by then I’d grown tired of the back and forth, and decided to become a general assignment reporter once again. That was shortly before I heard Flo Ballard was on welfare, went over to her house to find out what was going on, and moved almost totally into MotownWorld.”

It’s that world’s enduring appeal on the opposite side of the Atlantic which led to the return of “Young Train,” fuelled by British disc jockey Alan “Kitch” Kitchener, a longtime soul music collector. “The Motown sound has always appealed to me,” he says, “and is the backbone of the sort of music I like. I had read about the political message that [the Originals’ record] was putting across through some internet and various research. I managed to get one via eBay, and began to champion the track every chance I got to play it at various clubs – but being at the Boat Club [in Nottingham], I could give it a major push.”

***Coleman Young celebrates Stevie Wonder Day on September 27, 1974 (photo: City of Detroit)***

Its reputation spurred Mark Anderson to add “Young Train,” coupled with “Young Ideas,” to the inventory of MD Records, becoming the third release on its Blacktop series. The label has licensed other soul repertoire from the ’70s, including Ronnie Walker’s version of “Can You Love A Poor Boy,” written by Stevie Wonder and Ivy Jo Hunter, and “You’re Messing Up A Good Thing” by Bottom and Co., recorded by producers Terry Woodford and Clayton Ivey in Muscle Shoals at the same time as “You’re My Life,” the band’s Motown single of 1974. “For some reason, Motown decided against releasing ‘You’re Messing Up A Good Thing,’” says Anderson. “Why, we will never know, but to find the master tapes in the wild and be able to release the tracks 47 years later is fantastic.” The MD exec adds, “We look to bring out the unreleased, rare and also contemporary recordings, although we are mainly in the soul, funk and gospel arena at the moment, which is where we started three years ago.”

And Coleman Young? He served a remarkable five terms as Detroit’s leader from 1974-94, with achievements which included substantial integration of the police department and major construction projects brought to the city. An anecdotal measure of his political influence came during Jimmy Carter’s presidency, when the Democratic party’s final major rally of the 1980 campaign was held in Detroit. En route to the microphone to address the crowd, America’s Vice President, Walter Mondale, briefly bowed and kneeled before the mayor. On Coleman’s death in 1997, Carter called him “one of the greatest mayors our country has known.”

Young, of course, recognised Motown Records’ stature (it was, in 1973, the largest black-owned business in the U.S.) and was grateful for its support. “At the Fox Theater on Woodward Avenue,” he wrote in his autobiography, Hard Stuff, “the Temps and Little Stevie and some of the most popular recording artists in the world lit up the stage of the Motown Revue. At less glittery night spots, like the 20 Grand…you might get lucky and catch an act on the order of Martha Reeves or Smokey Robinson; and it was worth going to Reverend Franklin’s church just to hear his girl sing with the choir.”

When he was no longer little, Stevie Wonder himself floated on several occasions the idea of succeeding Young as mayor. “I’m serious about it,” he said during a Detroit press conference in December 1988. “Maybe it won’t be ’93, it might be four years after that.” It wasn’t, of course, but the idea was entertaining enough. “Should and when I become mayor,” he added, “we’ll have music in the chambers all the time.”

Now that’s an idea to vote for.

West Grand Blog