Jun21st

The Motown Sound

Posted at 5:07 am By: jamie | Filed Under Black Music Month '07 

During the mid- and late ‘60s, Motown sound was the rhythm that kept America bopping: at discos, basement parties and hip events of the era. Hits by hits were made from Detroit by the likes of the Supremes, The Temptations, Martha and the Vandellas, Stevie Wonder, The Marvelettes, The Miracles and The Four Tops.

Detroit was precisely an automobile town until 1959. Its little music setting was composed of quite a few small RnB record labels directed exclusively at a black audience. Until Berry Gordy Jr. came into the scene and changed all that. His sagacity, brainpower and business insight helped produce what became the most lucrative black-owned industry in the globe.

The first release under Gordy’s label was Marv Johnson’s “Come to Me.” It hit Number 30 and had an acceptable viewing. The products of the renowned Motown sound could be heard in the first Gordy discs involving gospel rhythms, weighty use of tambourine, and the loud bass.

During the years 1962 and 1963, the hits remained arriving and by early 1964, Gordy had formed a striking array of artists, including The Temptations, The Miracles, The Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Mary Wells, The Mervelettes, Martha and the Vandellas, and the Supremes. Motown also included talented production team and songwriters who molded the celebrated Motown sound: plenty of tambourines, a diluted gospel-pop, boosted by fierce bass and sweltering cymbal. Each record was distinct, but there was that undeniable something that marked it as Motown. Motown constantly downplayed its racial characteristic. Accordingly, its listeners were integrated. Unlike raw-sounding soul music, any abrasive components were sifted out.

The Motown sound reached its chart summit between 1964 and 1967, with the Supremes and the Four Tops staggering strips of hits. Before the end of the decade, Motown again had its shining moment with Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” and in 1969, Motown brought in its first winning new act in many years, The Jackson Five.

Today, Motown records from the ‘60s are as well-liked as ever. Every year carries a new set of cover records, and its rhythm has been borrowed and blended in with contemporary music. But the Motown’s most lasting legacy is the fact that it shifted black music into the pop mainstream for the first time.

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