Motown's Number Ones, Part 2

AT RADIO TODAY, LIONEL AND STEVIE SUSTAIN THE LEGACY

And so to the second part of the survey of those Motown classics which topped the Billboard Hot 100 during Berry Gordy’s ownership of the firm (here’s the first part). All but the first three of the following 26 titles are from the post-Detroit era. The last Number One cut in the Motor City was “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone.” Most of the rest were recorded in Los Angeles, at Motown’s MoWest facilities or other studios.

      As with part one, the singles are listed here chronologically by the date when each rose to the summit; the total of weeks at Number One is also shown. Each entry includes a comment from someone with first-hand involvement in the hit-making process, whether as singer, songwriter, arranger or producer. The commentary sources are shown, mostly autobiographies, magazine articles or extracts from The Billboard Book of Number One Rhythm & Blues Hits by yours truly and Fred Bronson. (You can find even more about the music and those who made it in Fred’s own essential The Billboard Book of Number One Hits.)

      Reviewing the entire 1961-1986 span of Motown’s Hot 100 triumphs – 53 in all – is a reminder that the Supremes accumulated the most (12), followed by Stevie Wonder (8), Diana Ross (6) and Lionel Richie (5). If you add in Richie’s work as a songwriter, his total comes to 7.

Home of the hits – Motown: The Complete #1s

      If you put together the number of Jackson 5 chart-toppers with their appearance on Stevie Wonder’s “You Haven’t Done Nothin’” and then throw in “Ben,” Michael has been to summit six times with Motown. If you combine the Supremes’ Number Ones with those by Diana Ross after she left the group, her total of roost-ruling hits comes to 18, with an impressive 42 weeks at the peak. (And I’m sure chart buffs have other variations of the data.)

      But before heading for the countdown, here’s some additional perspective from Sean Ross, my former colleague at Radio & Records back in the day. His regular Ross On Radio column is mandatory reading for programmers everywhere, including this piece published when Hitsville: The Making of Motown opened last year.

      The second sweep of Motown’s Number Ones, as documented below, includes the songs that you’re most likely to hear on the radio today, especially the most recent ones. In general, Ross told me, Motown’s chart-toppers of the 1960s and ’70s faded from North American radio playlists as formats evolved from “oldies” to “classic hits,” and as stations gave more airtime to ’80s and ’90s music. “Similarly,” he added, “mainstream Adult Contemporary-formatted outlets moved away from the hits of the ’60s and ’70s.”

      According to Ross, the recent growth of “The Breeze” and other so-called Soft Adult Contemporary formats has meant that certain Motown classics are probably easier to find today than a couple of years ago, but it also means that they’re likely to be the newer, softer ones – which has brought back Lionel’s catalogue and Stevie’s ’80s hits. Meanwhile, Adult R&B stations’ centre these days is the late ’80s and ’90s. “Their biggest Motown act is probably Boyz II Men,” he noted. “One of the oldest songs many of them play is ‘Let’s Get It On’ – the song they can’t get rid of.”

STILL PLAYING ‘ALL NIGHT LONG’

      Based on airplay on U.S. and Canadian stations tracked by Broadcast Data Systems (which are mostly FM outlets in larger markets) in a recent seven-day period, the most popular Motown Number Ones were Richie’s “All Night Long (All Night)” (with 1,086 spins) and Wonder’s “Superstition” (486), followed by “Let’s Get It On” (304) and “I Just Called To Say I Love You” (302). By contrast, “Ben” earned exactly two plays during those same seven days, while Eddie Kendricks’ “Keep On Truckin’” garnered 14 spins. If you need a comparison to the airplay of current hits, Harry Styles’ “Watermelon Sugar,” the most popular track at Top 40 in America this week, accumulated 30,301 spins.

      You can find more such insights @RossOnRadio on Twitter, and can subscribe to Sean’s newsletter via a link in the bio. The best place to see a lot of his columns is here. (Be warned, the world of music radio programming can be addictive.) But now, back to those Number Ones on the Billboard Hot 100…

28. THE TEMPTATIONS, “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)” (Gordy 7105) 3/4/1971 (2)

“We loved the song with just the basic tracks, but were totally knocked out when we heard the finished record, with all the strings. Arranger Jerry Long, who studied in Paris and scored movies, did a wonderful job capturing the song’s magical, dreamy sadness. It was, I think, Eddie’s finest moment. We were up half the night recording the song, and when I left at six in the morning, Eddie was still putting down his vocals. Things between us were very bad, but I called him the next day to let him know I was concerned about how hard he worked and appreciated his efforts.” – Otis Williams, Temptations with Patricia Romanowski, 1988.

Michael: waiting for the credits

29. MICHAEL JACKSON, “Ben” (Motown 1207) 14/10/1972 (1)

“ ‘Ben’ meant a lot to me. Nothing had ever excited me as much as going to the studio to put my voice on film. I had a great time. Later, when the movie came out, I’d go to the theatre and wait until the end when the credits would flash on, and it would say, ‘Ben,’ sung by Michael Jackson.’ I was really impressed by that. I loved the song and I loved the story.” – Michael Jackson, Moonwalk, 1988.

30. THE TEMPTATIONS, “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone” (Gordy 7117) 2/12/1972 (1)

“To me, the bass conveyed mystery and suspense. So I arranged the song like a movie score. The soundtrack to Shaft was a big influence. I had seen the film a year earlier when it came out and loved what my friend, arranger Johnny Allen, did with the orchestration. The bass on ‘Papa’ had a similar feel. I wanted to use strings throughout the song to build suspense. I wrote a string arrangement that wrapped around the bass to enhance the line.” – Arranger Paul Riser, Wall Street Journal, 2018, by Marc Myers.

31. STEVIE WONDER, “Superstition” (Tamla 54226) 27/1/1973 (1)

“The tune I wanted to release as a single was ‘Big Brother,’ but that was done too late to come out as a single. Motown decided they wanted to release ‘Superstition.’ I said Jeff [Beck] wanted it, and they told me I needed a strong single in order for the album to be successful. My understanding was that Jeff would be releasing ‘Superstition’ long before I was going to finish my album; I was late giving them Talking Book. Jeff recorded ‘Superstition’ in July, so I thought it would be out. But I did promise him the song, and I’m sorry it happened and that he came out with some of the arrogant statements he came out with. I will get another tune to him that I think is as exciting, and if he wants to do it, cool.” – Stevie Wonder, Rolling Stone, 1973, by Ben Fong-Torres.

32. STEVIE WONDER, “You Are The Sunshine Of My Life” (Tamla 54232) 19/5/1973 (1)

“ ‘You Are The Sunshine Of My Life’ was such an up tune. People would call it the ‘Stevie Wonder song.’ He ended up being on top of the world. We started with the Fender Rhodes part and then the Moog part. But the earlier records were more overdub parts with Stevie playing everything. The more we got into the records, the more the band started playing on the records. [Talking Book] wasn’t a hard record to make because everything just fell together.” – Producer Robert Margouleff, The Atlantic, 2012, with Chris Williams.

Eddie: from just one kiss, he’s inspired

33. DIANA ROSS, “Touch Me In The Morning” (Motown 1239) 18/8/1973 (1)

“When it was time for Diane and I to work on the musical key for the song, she said she wanted to do that at seven o’clock. I explained to her that that was much too late and I didn’t want the musicians up all night cutting the record. So she said she meant seven in the morning! I explained that she couldn’t get a key that early in the morning without sounding like Gravel Gerty. And she said, ‘I can’t help it. I’ve got to go to New York that day to buy hats!” – Songwriter Ron Miller, from Diana by J. Randy Taraborrelli, 1985.

34. MARVIN GAYE, “Let’s Get It On” (Tamla 54234) 8/9/1973 (2)

“I stopped him one day, stopped the session, and said, ‘Marvin, I understand why you don’t go on tour, because you can’t take this studio with you and stop and overdub at Madison Square Garden. You have to start at the beginning and go to the end. That pissed him off really bad, you know, and he took off his shirt, went and got on the microphone and sang ‘Let’s Get It On’ for ten minutes. When he was finished, he put his shirt back on and said, ‘Now, what do you think?’ And it came out wonderful.” – Songwriter/producer Ed Townsend, The Billboard Book Of Number One Rhythm & Blues Hits, 1993

35. EDDIE KENDRICKS, “Keep On Truckin’ ” (Tamla 54238) 10/11/1973 (2)

“When Leonard [Caston] and I would get together, we would look at just different pieces of grooves. Things would start musically, and if we really liked it, we’d work at coming up with the melody and the structure. Then we’d get with Anita Poree. She’d come up with the basic lyric idea, and we’d work together to completion. We’d cut the tracks first, and then get with Eddie and rehearse. Both Leonard and I could sing falsetto, so we could actually select a key and everything without him.” – Songwriter/producer Frank Wilson, The Billboard Book Of Number One Rhythm & Blues Hits, 1993.

36. STEVIE WONDER, “You Haven’t Done Nothin’ ” (Tamla 54252) 2/11/1974 (1)

“Everybody promises you everything, but in the end nothing comes out of it. I don’t for anybody until after they have really done something that I know about. I want to see them do something first. The only trouble is that you always hear the president or people say that they are doing all they can. And they feed you with hopes for years and years. But that is probably typical of most people in very important positions who have a lot of power. I’m sick and tired of listening to all of their lies.” – Stevie Wonder, source unknown, 1974.

Diana: from pain to beauty

37. DIANA ROSS, “Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To)” (Motown 1377) 24/1/1976 (1)

“I was going through a lot of changes in my personal life at that time. When I first wrote the music, I couldn’t touch the melody for a while because it was so painful for me. I guess what you could say about ‘Mahogany’ is that it passed from pain to beauty. The first time Diana heard it, she looked over to a picture of her children on the wall and had tears in her eyes. That’s how we knew when we were close.” – Songwriter/producer Michael Masser, from Diana by J. Randy Taraborrelli, 1985.

38. THE MIRACLES, “Love Machine (Part 1)” (Tamla 54262) 6/3/1976 (1)

“When Billy [Griffin] and I wrote the song ‘Love Machine,’ there was a group at the time called The Love Machine. And it was a group of seven beautiful girls, black girls, and they had the first Miss Black America beauty contest. So they took seven of the girls from the contest and formed this group. Billy and I were talking one day. We said, ‘Man, why don’t we write a song for these girls?’ And we did. And then we went by the office, and we had a meeting with Suzanne de Passe, and we played the song for her, and Suzanne said, ‘You guys are crazy, you need to record this yourselves.’ ” – Pete Moore of the Miracles, interviewed at the Heroes And Legends (HAL) Awards, Los Angeles, 2008.

39. DIANA ROSS, “Love Hangover” (Motown 1392) 29/5/1976 (2)

“She said she didn’t want to do it, she didn’t like disco. She had just had her baby, she came in moody, and didn’t really want to get into anything. So we got her a little taste of vodka – she’s a vodka drinker – and she sat back, kicked her shoes off, and said, ‘Well, I’ll go out and give it a try.’ You see, I play with the mind, set the mood. Diana got in there [in the vocal booth], started singing. She said, ‘It sounds pretty good.’ She got into it. Her eyes were flashing, the strobe was flashing, the vodka was tasting better, the engineer was popping. There were only three of us sitting there, but you would have sworn there was a party going on. That’s why it was a smash.” – Producer Hal Davis, The Billboard Book Of Number One Rhythm & Blues Hits, 1993.

40. STEVIE WONDER, “I Wish” (Tamla 54274) 22/1/1977 (1)

“The day I wrote it was a Saturday, the day of a Motown picnic in the summer of ’76. God, I remember that because I was having this really bad toothache. It was ridiculous. I had such a good time at the picnic that I went to Crystal Recording Studio right afterward and the vibe came right to my mind: running at the picnic, the contests, we all participated. It was a lot of fun, even though I couldn’t eat the hot dogs – that was around the time of the creation of those chicken hot dogs. And from that came the ‘I Wish’ vibe.” – Stevie Wonder, Musician, 1984, by David Breskin.

Thelma: ‘a beautiful masterpiece’

41. THELMA HOUSTON, “Don’t Leave Me This Way” (Tamla 54278) 23/4/1977 (1)

“We were seven minutes into [recording] the tune, and the guy walked in from the union, saying, ‘Hey, we’ve been hearing that you’re cutting these long versions. You can’t keep doing that, we’re going to have to start charging extra.’ I think it was three minutes to six, and when it hit six o’clock, he says, ‘You can’t keep going.’ We were jamming: we had a vamp going, the cats were playing, and this crazy joker from the union said, ‘Well, I’m going to stop the date.’ I jumped out of my chair. ‘If you go out there,’ I said, ‘it’ll be the first time you’ve been knocked out.’ I knew I had a beautiful masterpiece, and he had no feeling.” – Producer Hal Davis, The Billboard Book Of Number One Rhythm & Blues Hits, 1993.

42. STEVIE WONDER, “Sir Duke” (Tamla 54281) 21/5/1977 (3)

“With ‘Sir Duke,’ I knew the title from the beginning but wanted it to be about the musicians who did something for us. So soon are they forgotten. I wanted to show my appreciation. They gave us something that is supposed to be forever. That’s the basic idea of what we do and how we hook it up.” – Stevie Wonder, Billboard, 1977.

43. MARVIN GAYE, “Got To Give It Up (Pt. 1) (Tamla 54280) 25/6/1977 (1)

“I’d seen him in the early days, but he had changed so drastically that by the time he got his next thing going – after What’s Going On – he overdubbed [vocals] sitting right at the recording console. He didn’t go out into the studio. He would sit at one end of the console, [producer] Art Stewart would sit at the other, and he’d sing about two lines at a time. He’d say, ‘OK, run that back.’ Then they’d punch the whole thing in. It was really weird, because they had the [microphone] boom coming right over the top of the console, and he would just sit and sing there. Marvin was so creative.” – Musician Jack Ashford, The Billboard Book Of Number One Rhythm & Blues Hits, 1993.

44. THE COMMODORES, “Three Times A Lady” (Motown 1443) 12/8/1978 (2)

“I see it all happening onstage. In fact, that’s how I write, looking at the song from a performing angle. If I were sitting in an audience, what would be the right intro for the song? Would I like it to be exciting or come from the angle of having a lot of feeling? I see it being performed live in my mind. That helps me keep the interest up through the whole song.” – Lionel Richie, Billboard, 1980.

45. THE COMMODORES, “Still” (Motown 1474) 17/11/1979 (1)

“ ‘Still’ was the other side of the coin from ‘Sail On.’ The song was written about another couple that was in the process of breaking up. I admired their strength. They decided their marriage was not the thing for them and they were probably destroying what they had in the first place, which was friendship. They both sat down and said, ‘Listen, we want to be friends, we said some things wrong. Let’s get a divorce and that way [we] can still be in love and still love [each other] as friends.” – Lionel Richie, Dick Clark National Music Survey, 1980.

Diana and Lionel: theme for a love story

46. DIANA ROSS, “Upside Down” (Motown 1494) 6/9/1980 (4)

“Diana couldn’t believe the crowd reaction [at a Chic concert]. She said, ‘I haven’t seen this since the Jackson 5.’ She was backstage, dancing and into it. ‘My kids made me come and see this show, all they were talking about was Chic, Chic, Chic. That’s what I want my record to sound like.’ She said, ‘I don’t want to sound like L.A. at all. I left California, I’m in New York, I’ve got a whole new life here.’” – Songwriter/producer Nile Rodgers, The Billboard Book Of Number One Rhythm & Blues Hits, 1993.

47. DIANA ROSS & LIONEL RICHIE, “Endless Love” (Motown 1519) 15/8/1981 (9)

“I wrote that one backwards! I got a call from Franco Zefferelli to review a movie he was doing. He said he was looking for a theme for the film Love Story. I didn’t have a lot of time because I was producing Kenny Rogers and the Commodores at the same time. After I started writing the song, Zefferelli called and said he wanted lyrics for the middle of the tune. Then he wanted a first verse, and then…Diana Ross had been asked to sing the lead and now it’s a duet and I’m singing with her! I was recording in L.A. that day with Kenny and then the Commodores, and then I flew into Reno to record with Diana. That day almost killed me!” – Lionel Richie, Blues & Soul, 1992, by Pete Lewis.

48. LIONEL RICHIE, “Truly” (Motown 1644) 27/11/1982 (2)

“James Carmichael would come by each time we were getting ready to launch an album and we’d all play songs for him. It was during a lunch break and he came by my house. I had a sketch for a song that I thought would be great for Barbra Streisand, but James felt I should record it for the next Commodores album. It didn’t make that album, so I held it for my first solo LP.” – Lionel Richie, Blues & Soul, 1992, by Pete Lewis.

49. LIONEL RICHIE, “All Night Long (All Night)” (Motown 1698) 12/11/1983 (4)

“That session was absolutely insane. Bob Rafelson, who was going to direct the video, had break dancers in one room listening to the track. We had the choir learning their background vocals in another room. I was across the street, rehearsing the song for a concert in Tahoe that was the warm-up date for my tour. I did the Tahoe show, performed ‘All Night Long’ as an encore to an audience that had never heard it before, then flew back to L.A. to finish mixing the song to put it out.” – Lionel Richie, liner notes for Can’t Slow Down (deluxe edition), 2003, by Steven Ivory.

50. LIONEL RICHIE, “Hello” (Motown 1722) 12/5/1984

“You’ve got to be able to trust your producer. Perfect example: ‘Hello.’ James Carmichael came in, I said, ‘James, I’ve got this beginning,’ and I played drm, drm, drm, drm, and I said, ‘It sounds like a soap opera theme.’ And he said, ‘Rich, finish the song.’ I said, ‘James, I hate it.’ He said, ‘Rich, please.’ He made me write the song. I’m talking about made me – from beginning to end.” – Lionel Richie, The Independent, 1992, by Giles Smith.

Stevie: working at making things happen

51. STEVIE WONDER, “I Just Called To Say I Love You” (Tamla 1745) 13/10/1984 (3)

“It was said that I’d stolen the song. That wasn’t the case at all. I used to play the beginning of what ultimately became ‘I Just Called…’ at different birthday parties. The reality was we had that history, plus proof through tapes and other things. That experience was a deep one: it was my first time going to court. And it was an amazing pain to go through, feeling that you’ve failed. But God got me up and out of that.” – Stevie Wonder, Billboard, 2004, by Gail Mitchell.

52. STEVIE WONDER, “Part-Time Lover” (Tamla 1808) 2/11/1985

“It just took me a long time to get the songs [on In Square Circle] I wanted. I usually come up with the music first and then come up with an idea about the song. I sing a lyric out loud and change it right away if it sounds like too many words. I practice piano every day and sing other people’s songs when I do. The album represents who I am in this decade, but it also represents what I’m seeing in a lot of situations with a lot of people. The theme…is that life and love are beautiful, but people have to work at making things happen all the time.” – Stevie Wonder, USA Today, 1985.

53. LIONEL RICHIE, “Say You, Say Me” (Motown 1819) 21/12/1985 (4)

“You don’t write songs to win awards or set records. If you tried, those would be the ones that you could count on not working. Is there pressure trying to break a record? No, there’s pressure just trying to come up with another song that works.” – Lionel Richie, Los Angeles Times, 1986, by Jack Mathews.

Music notes: as with the first part of this WGB accounting of Motown’s Number Ones, here’s a playlist for your listening pleasure. If you’re more physical than digital, there’s Motown: The Complete #1s boxed set to consider, as pictured above. The luxurious 2008 edition contained ten CDs, covering 60 years of music which topped various pop and R&B charts, from 1960’s “Shop Around” to 2000’s “Bag Lady.” It also included tracks which triumphed overseas, such as Diana Ross’ “I’m Still Waiting,” as well as a couple of country star T.G. Sheppard’s chart-toppers for Motown’s Melodyland imprint. Last year, Motown: The Complete #1s was updated for the 60th anniversary celebrations, with an additional disc of roost-rulers, including a couple of latterday Diana dance remixes.