The "All Things Motown/Stax" Thread

[harmless]

So come on, every guy grab a girl, everywhere around the world. Yeeeeaaahaaah.

[Lament]

All we need is music. Sweet music.

[harmless]

[Lament]

[harmless]

Perfect gif.

[harmless]

Also this.

[Lament]

I bet that girl knows that you can't hurry love. You just have to wait.

[harmless]

Watching Charlie Brown bopping his head from left to right is hilarious.

[Lament]

[harmless]

I just got on my camel and I'm riding, like I do every day.

[Lament]

Life is more tolerable when you view it as a series of camel rides.

[zeb]

I have enjoyed Lament's posts in this thread.

[Jorge]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/201301A47.html

[Lament]

I have enjoyed Lament's posts in this thread.

This compliment made my night. Thank you sir.

[Lament]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/201301A47.html

$20,000? Wow. That's insane.

[zeb]

I have enjoyed Lament's posts in this thread.

This compliment made my night. Thank you sir.

[contamination]

This thread needs more Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham & Chips Moman, well, at least Dan Penn:

[Wendy Carlos's Twin]

"You Can't Hurry Love" gives me a feeling that I can't describe. "She Loves You" by The Beatles is another one like that. It takes me back to a simpler time. Granted, I was born in the 70's, but everything old was new to me then, and those are special songs that still stand out today.

[Lament]

"You Can't Hurry Love" gives me a feeling that I can't describe. "She Loves You" by The Beatles is another one like that. It takes me back to a simpler time. Granted, I was born in the 70's, but everything old was new to me then, and those are special songs that still stand out today.

I (think I) know that feeling you're referring to. "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & the Comets is one that does that for me (even though I was born in the 80s). There's something very magical about the very first pop songs you remember, contemporary or not.

[contamination]

Let's do this. Let's do this hard.

I'm halfway into the fourth "disc" of Hitsville U.S.A - The Motown Singles Collection, and after having paid more attention to several black artists of the era over the last few days (Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Sly and the Family Stone, The Temptations, and others here and there) I'm convinced that musically, black 60's / 70's > white 60's / 70's. It's all more interestingly structured, and clearly more influential. I can hear so many ideas that originate here but have been ascribed to white guys. As a drummer, the rhythmic innovations of Motown and Stax are what stick out; the drumming and bass guitar-work is so much more intricate than any white music of its era, and clearly a real progression of 50's Rock and Roll. The ghost-notes on the snare drum, the interplay between hats and snare, and backbeats! One track on Hitsville U.S.A is the earliest song I've heard which makes me think of Drum 'n Bass and Breakbeat (I was aware that Breakbeat originated in the seventies, when DJ Kool Herc used to play isolated drum-breaks from funk and soul songs back to back). Here's the track I'm referring to, "Twenty-Five Miles" by Edwin Starr:



Question: Which artists are more correctly labelled 'Stax' than 'Motown'?

If you're really into this stuff I suggest you check Muscle Shoals stuff (Fame, Muscle Shoals Studios and all that). Funny thing is that a lot of the Soul/R&B hits were actually written by a bunch of white dudes (e.g. Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham, Chips Moman) and also on the recordings some of the musicians playing are white, and it was not uncommon for the whole band to be white (e.g. like The Swampers on Aretha's first big hits 'Do right Woman Do Right Man', 'Chain of Fools' etc.). Peter Gularnick's Sweet Soul Music is the essential reading, and they also made a good documentary about Muscle Shoals last year. PM me if you want a link to watch that.

Trailer of the doc: