Red Mosquito

contamination wrote:

harmless wrote: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:

Lament wrote:Yeah, the forces behind Motown were almost exclusively black. Berry Gordy, Holland-Dozier-Holland, four of the five Funk Brothers (right?) every artist besides Rare Earth...

doug rr wrote:Berry Gordy ran Motown..He's black