What was the identity of motown

In they left the company and Motown moved into its modern phase. No one production team has been allowed to dominate the creative process the way Holland and Dozier did in the middle Sixties. Instead a variety of men and women have emerged, each with their own special talents, each capable of consistently producing top ten records.

As a result, the Motown sound today is more diversified than at any time since its earliest days, and yet, like those early records, they are all clearly Motown records.

What was the Motown sound? In its heyday, in the middle Sixties, it consisted of: 1 simply structured songs with sophisticated melodies and chord changes, 2 a relentless four-beat drum pattern, 3 a gospel use of background voices, vaguely derived from the style of the Impressions, 4 a regular and sophisticated use of both horns and strings, 5 lead singers who were half way between pop and gospel music, 6 a group of accompanying musicians who were among the most dextrous, knowledgeable, and brilliant in all of popular music Motown bassists have long been the envy of white rock bassists and 7 a trebly style of mixing that relied heavily on electronic limiting and equalizing boosting the high range frequencies to give the overall product a distinctive sound, particularly effective for broadcast over AM radio.

It is safe to say that from to ninety percent of all Motown records possessed every one of these qualities. But it is not true, as has been charged from time to time, that as a result, all Motown records sounded the same. They only did in the sense that all Warner Brothers detective pictures looked the same in the Forties. But the beauty of the records is in the differences, subtle as they may be, that separate one from another.

The nuances, the shadings, the giving and taking away of things to emphasize points: this became the area of personal creativity at Motown. And as the song writing——both melody and lyrics——became ever more beautiful and singing ever more direct, the quality of the records improved at a pace that was all but astounding.

For, like all great popular art, Motown confined itself in formal ways to liberate itself in other ways. Just as all Motown records do not really sound alike, so too must it be understood that the sound itself was not a contrivance but a style that grew out of the musical wisdom of some true rock and roll revolutionaries.

When it proved right to millions of record buyers, it only served to confirm their personal judgment, not to determine it. I say as a totality, because it is often hard to know who to call the artist on a Motown record.

Diana Ross played her part so well it would be ludicrous to suggest that anyone else could have done it justice. On the other hand it is impossible to form a picture of Diana Ross as a recording artist apart from the production that gave her her musical identity and image.

With a Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops or a Martha Reeves from the Vandellas one is more tempted to give the artist the major share of the credit.

They have built an identity through the production that often transcends the production. Perhaps the true relationship between Motown artist and producer is revealed by what happened to Holland and Dozier after they left the company——and to the acts they produced. Their two biggest, the Four Tops and the Supremes, have never regained the hit-making consistency they had under Holland and Dozier, and the Tops in particular have suffered a long dry spell.

However, Holland and Dozier themselves have fared far worse. The Motown Sound jumped out of Hitsville U. Unlike anything listeners had ever heard, Motown songs married the saintly and the secular—merging the call-and-response patterns of black gospel music with the syncopation and improvisation of the bebop movement in jazz.

Producers cut and blended tracks, using equipment that can still be viewed in Hitsville U. True to his commitment to quality, Berry Gordy, Jr. Artists and producers sweated it out each week at notoriously competitive company-wide meetings, hoping to pass muster and see their songs released for sale to an eagerly awaiting public.

View All Programs. We all have heard of The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, and the Jackson 5, but where did Motown come from and how has it been important? Whenever I think of Motown my mind jumps straight to the thought of Detroit. The term Motown was dimed by its creator, Berry Gordy[1]. But Motown is more than a name and a city. Motown is funk.

You must know a few things. This gobbeldegook had been used as holding lyrics until Richards came up with the proper words; ever the perfectionist, however, Ross sang this nonsense beautifully. That way, its artists had closer ties to the company culture than those signed to another label who delivered their own material and masters.

For some acts, such as The Supremes, Motown effectively controlled their career, vetoing some bookings and directing them to better-paid or more prestigious gigs. This kind of relationship meant that some acts, such as The Temptations and Four Tops, remained with the label an inordinately long time, delivering hits down the decades.

Their names are synonymous with Motown, despite periods spent at other companies. Later, Philadelphia International and Tabu had similar interweaved relationships with their artists, though neither were as all-encompassing as Motown.

He kept in touch with what it takes to make a hit. Above all else… Motown proved that a black-owned entertainment company could rise to the top of the tree, endure, prove itself superior to its rivals, make a lasting impact on popular culture, develop a unique corporate and artistic identity, and thrive in times of massive turmoil.

Discover how Motown broke racial barriers like no other record label. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.