Reflections on the Road Ahead
ENDLESS LOVE FOR MOTOWN, AT HOME AND ABROAD
Just because The Big 60 has come and gone, it doesn’t mean there won’t be one or two more anniversaries to celebrate. Or three or four or...
Welcome to WGB’s look ahead for 2021, as much as anyone dare anticipate or confirm anything in the current environment. Many of the dates referenced below are concerts postponed from last year and, prudently, most are set for the summer and autumn.
The big news in June? The rescheduled overseas excursions by Diana Ross and Lionel Richie. The former’s “Top Of The World” tour touches down in the U.K. that month – all things being equal – with shows in Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds and London. Ross is also supposed to be appearing at the Glastonbury music festival at the end of June, but there’s no word yet on whether the entire event will go ahead.
Richie meditates in readiness
Richie triumphed at Glastonbury in 2015. This year, he’s aiming to take his “Hello” tour to other British locations – Hampton Court Palace, anyone? – and venues in Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands. What’s unknown is whether his “Hello” perfume is going to be marketed in Europe as accompaniment.
Meanwhile, Richie’s former bandmates, the Commodores, have summertime shows booked in Las Vegas, Burbank and Atlantic City. It’ll be interesting to see whether anyone mentions their 50th anniversary: it was on June 1, 1971 that the Commodores signed to Motown Records.
The major milestone which was supposed to have been celebrated in 2020 will instead be hailed this year, with luck (and vaccinations). Yes, it’s the Temptations’ 60th. As you know well, the group was formed in 1960, but this anniversary can reasonably be relinked to May 15, 1961, when they were first contracted to Motown. Their debut single, “Oh Mother Of Mine,” was also recorded that month.
Last autumn, the Temptations’ double-act with the Four Tops was booked for another circuit in Britain. Those deferred shows in Leeds, Liverpool and London (among other cities) are now in the diary for this October, followed by dates back home at National Harbor in Maryland and Westbury, New York.
Two more legendary names have a significant anniversary this year. It was on January 15, 1961, that Diana Ross, Barbara Martin, Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard were signed to Motown Record Corp. The previous month at Hitsville, they had recorded what would become their first single release, “I Want A Guy.” On July 15, 1961, Stephen Hardaway Judkins – professionally known as Little Stevie Wonder – joined the roster. The next month, the 11-year-old was also inked to Berry Gordy, Jr. Enterprises for personal management; the signatures on the paperwork were those of his mother, Lula Mae Judkins, and Raynoma Liles and Esther Edwards for the company. None of those performers could have imagined then what extraordinary futures they would have, nor that they would still be the object of public attention worldwide, 60 years on.
WONDER’S SINGULAR CONTROL
Whether the recorded work of those legends will be celebrated in 2021 with vinyl reissues or new CD editions remains to be seen. In Wonder’s case, there’s always the possibility of new music – a hope sustained by the recent release (albeit not by Motown Records) of “Can’t Put It In The Hands Of Fate” and “Where Is Our Love Song.” As for his past, the contracts signed when Wonder turned 21 gave him singular, lasting control over the way his Motown catalogue can be packaged and presented. It is unlikely that expanded editions of his classic 1970s albums will ever materialise – or, at least, not in his lifetime. So we should not expect, for example, Universal Music to create an upgraded version of Where I’m Coming From for April 14, which will be the 50th anniversary of its first Tamla release.
What’s Going On is a different story. Various permutations and expansions of the original album have been made available on compact disc and vinyl over the past 30 years, and perhaps another will arrive for its 50th anniversary on May 21. (Can there possibly be anything unheard/unissued in the vault?) During the run-up to that day, Marvin Gaye’s masterwork is certain to be written about again. And again.
Worthy of re-examination – but one year short of its 50th – is Lady Sings The Blues, Diana Ross’ cinematic debut and tour de force as Billie Holiday. The opportunity to see the film in Blu-ray arrives on February 23 with its first release in that format. The disc also offers previously-available bonus content, including deleted scenes and commentary from Berry Gordy and director Sidney Furie, as well as another chance to glimpse lesser Motown lights, such as the Lewis Sisters, Yvonne Fair and Robert Gordy.
On the subject of moving pictures, this month’s virtual Sundance Film Festival will feature the directorial debut of the Roots’ Questlove: namely, Summer of Soul (…Or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised). The well-regarded musician has cinematically tackled the tale of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, sometimes known as “Black Woodstock” for the calibre of performers who took part, including Stevie Wonder, Sly & the Family Stone and Nina Simone. Much of the event footage has never been seen, and Wonder’s set, for one, was excluded from the one-hour, network TV special which was broadcast at the time. With luck, the documentary will also draw on film of David Ruffin, Blinky, Chuck Jackson and Gladys Knight & the Pips, who took part in a Harlem Cultural Festival concert in Mount Morris Park during that July of ’69.
While the annual Sundance Film Festival can go online, that option is more complicated during the pandemic for physical facilities such as museums. The Motown Museum in Detroit was closed and reopened in the course of 2020, but is currently shuttered. Likewise, the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles is closed at present, but is preparing a new exhibit, Motown: The Sound Of Young America, for when its doors reopen. This will trace the hit factory’s history and explore the Motown sound’s continuing influence on contemporary music.
MODERN MOTOWN AT THE MUSEUM
Naturally, memorabilia (including stage costumes), interactive elements and artist interviews will figure in the exhibit, as they did when the Grammy Museum curated a similar display at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas in 2019. The Los Angeles exhibit will also represent Motown’s current roster, according to Grammy Museum director of curatorial services, Stacie Takaoka. Last month via its new streaming service, the museum showcased interviews and performances by Joy Denalane, Chaz French, Asiahn and Njomza, all of whom are “modern Motown” acts.
Another 21st century Motown artist making waves in 2021 is Kem, whose duet with Toni Braxton, “Live Out Your Love,” topped Billboard’s Adult R&B Songs chart last week. It was one of two tracks by the Detroit-born singer for which the strings were laid down at the original Hitsville studio at 2648 West Grand Boulevard, with arranger Paul Riser. The 2019 sessions with local musicians marked the first time any recording had been done at the site since the early 1970s, when Motown quit Detroit for Los Angeles.
Riser returns to the Snakepit
With Riser conducting, the players included another musician who had taken part in sessions at Hitsville 50 years ago, harpist Patricia Terry-Ross. “It was like a factory here,” she told Brian McCollum of the Detroit Free Press. “It was business, but it was fun.” At one point, Riser faced a photo on the studio wall of his younger self with the Funk Brothers at a Stevie Wonder recording date. “I still hear their voices,” he said. “I see their faces.” Kem, meanwhile, has been working on an autobiography, ghostwritten by author David (Divided Soul) Ritz.
If 2021 holds out the promise of visiting – or revisiting – such places as the Motown Museum’s Studio A, and the return of singers and musicians to the concert trail, it’s rather murkier on the matter of music releases. There’s that new Diana Ross album, allegedly still in the making, and perhaps there’ll be another of those A-grade Supremes reissues from Real Gone Music/The Second Disc.
A strong candidate would be 1968’s Reflections, with mono and stereo versions, plus tracks from the surrounding period, such as “My Guy,” “Going All The Way To True Love” and “Am I Asking Too Much.” New mixes might be part of the package, too, given the number of alternate vocal takes (lead and background) in existence. And one or two of the Supremes’ Coca-Cola commercials from the same timeline?
One 2020 disappointment was the absence of a Motown Unreleased 1970 digital compilation, to extend the line of previous years. Motown Unreleased 1969 was the last such set, issued in September 2019, with a bumper 60 tracks by 30 acts. Prospects for Motown Unreleased 1971 towards the end of this year seem dim.
On a brighter note, there’s the possibility of another Motown Girls volume (on CD) from Britain’s Ace Records, and the vinyl reissue in March of Leon Ware’s 1976 album, Musical Massage. The latter will be via American record club Vinyl Me, Please. In the past, VMP made available Mama’s Gun by Erykah Badu in red and yellow vinyl, and assembled an eight-LP (plus podcasts) package, The Women Of Motown.
Much of what happens this year will be contingent on the defeat of coronavirus. There will be losses, but also gains. There’ll be new Motown music, and the continuing celebration of the company’s storied past. Look, if the young students of England’s highly-respected BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology want to perform the timeless hits of Hitsville U.S.A. in a two-night virtual concert, streamed online – as they did just a few weeks ago – then the future is bright, no matter what.
And perhaps Lionel or Diana can drop into the school this summer, to lend further encouragement.
Live music notes: naturally, there are more 2021 gigs in prospect by classic Motown acts than those noted above. The Jacksons are due to be out on the road, for example, and so is Smokey Robinson, albeit with a handful of shows in both cases, so far. The same applies to Boyz II Men, with summertime dates in the U.S. and Canada, and to Martha & the Vandellas, with British bookings in July. G.C. Cameron was among the various performers due to appear at the Blackpool International Soul Festival last year; that U.K. event is now rescheduled for this June 18-20. Among the more intriguing acts: the so-called Temptations Review, playing in 13 German cities in October. This group’s line-up includes former Temps member (1975-82) Glenn Leonard. And in May, joining a package featuring the Drifters and the Platters – one can’t begin to imagine who’s in those – are the, uh, Marvelettes. This is booked to play a venue in Joliet, Illinois on May 14, and the song title which comes to mind is “Danger Heartbreak Dead Ahead.”