A recent visit to the Motown Museum and recording studios has led to a happy immersion in the music from that movement’s glory days. My car speakers and earbuds are thrumming with the sounds of The Marvelettes, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Martha Reeves, The Temptations and several other artists.

Naturally, I have been excited to share this music with my sons, Evan and Sean, who are nearing their seventh and fifth birthdays. I am playing the upbeat, fun songs such as “ABC” by The Jackson 5, “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)” by The Four Tops and “The Way You Do The Things You Do” by The Temptations.

I was discussing this with a friend who gently admonished me, saying I should still play “educational” songs for the boys, things from Elmo and The Wiggles and their ilk.

“Pop music isn’t going to teach them anything,” he said.

I strenuously disagree.

In addition to the joy of creating and sharing the finer emotions evoked by music, many of the greatest songs, specifically Motown songs, contain encapsulated life lessons that run the gamut from appreciating peace, love and understanding to the horrors of war. My boys aren’t ready for all of these lessons, but then, who amongst us is?

So, thanks to such writers as Wonder, Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Norman Whitfield, Barrett Strong, Berry Gordy, Harvey Fuqua, Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, Eddie Holland, Nickolas Ashford, Valerie Simpson and scores of others artists, here is a tiny slice of “Everything I need to know about life I learned from Motown.”

• “Before you take a girl and say I do now/Make sure she’s in love with you now/My mama told me/You better shop around”
• “I don’t like you, but I love you/Seems like I’m always thinking of you/Though you treat me badly, I love you madly/You really got a hold on me”
• “Has high blood pressure got a hold on me, or is this the way love’s supposed to be?”
• “I don’t need no money, fortune, or fame/I’ve got all the riches baby one man can claim/I guess you’d say, what can make me feel this way?/My girl …”
• “It doesn’t matter what you wear, just as long as you are there/So come on every guy, grab a girl/Everywhere, around the world”
• “I heard a cryin’ man/Is half a man, with no sense of pride/But if I have to cry to keep you/I don’t mind weepin’ if it’ll keep you by my side”
• “You can’t hurry love/No, you just have to wait/You got to trust, give it time/No matter how long it takes”
• “Now show me a girl, a girl that’s fine/And I’ll choose the one with true lovin’ every time/I know that beauty’s only skin deep”
• “People say believe half of what you see, Son, and none of what you hear”
• “When you believe in things you don’t understand, then you suffer/Superstition ain’t the way”
• “This love we’re contemplatin’/Is worth the pain of waitin’/We’ll only end up hatin’/The child we may be creatin’”
• “As I walk this land of broken dreams/I have visions of many things/Love’s happiness is just an illusion/Filled with sadness and confusion/What becomes of the brokenhearted/Who had love that’s now departed?”

• “Reading and writing, arithmetic/Are the branches of the learning tree/But without the roots of love every day, girl/Your education ain’t complete”
• “If you see an old friend on the street, and he’s down/Remember his shoes could fit your feet/Why don’t you reach out and touch somebody’s hand/Make this world a better place, if you can”
• “Air pollution, revolution, gun control/Sound of soul/Shootin’ rockets to the moon/Kids growin’ up too soon/Politicians say more taxes will solve everything/Ball of Confusion, that’s what the world is today”
• “War! Good God, y’all, what is it good for?/Absolutely nothin’”
• “We don’t need to escalate/You see, war is not the answer/For only love can conquer hate/You know we’ve got to find a way/To bring some lovin’ here today”
• “Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand/With an equal opportunity, for all to sing, dance and clap their hands/But just because a record has a groove, don’t make it in the groove”
• “Poison is the wind that blows from the north and south and east/Oil wasted on the ocean and upon our seas, fish full of mercury/Radiation underground and in the sky/Animals and birds who live nearby are dying/Oh mercy, mercy me/Things ain’t what they used to be/What about this overcrowded land/How much more abuse from man can she stand?”
• “I’m telling you beware, beware of the handshake/That hides the snake/Beware of that pat on the back/It just might hold you back/Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes/They don’t tell the truth”
• “Money, we make it/Before we see it, you take it/Inflation, no chance/To increase finance”

• “Hey Mama, folk say that Papa was never much on thinking/Spent most of his time chasing women and drinking/Mama, I’m depending on you to tell me the truth/Mama looked up with a tear in her eye and said, ‘Son, Papa was a rolling stone/Wherever he laid his hat was his home/And when he died, all he left us was alone’”
• “Don’t you know how sweet and wonderful life can be/I’m askin’ you baby, to get it on with me/I ain’t gonna worry, I ain’t gonna push/So come on, come on, come on, come on baby/Stop beatin’ round the bush”
• “We are amazed but not amused/By all the things you say that you’ll do/We’re much concerned but not involved/With decisions that are made by you/But we are sick and tired of hearing your song/Telling how you are gonna change right from wrong/’Cause if you really want to hear our views/You haven’t done nothing!”
• “I hope you hear inside my voice of sorrow/And that it motivates you to make a better tomorrow/This place is cruel, nowhere could be much colder/If we don’t change the world will soon be over/Living just enough, just enough for the city”
• “Now there’s some sad things known to man/But ain’t too much sadder than/The tears of a clown, when there’s no one around”
• “Is her sweet expression/Worth more than my love and affection?”
• “I know flowers grow through rain/But how can love grow through pain?”
• “Now if you feel that you can’t go on/Because all of your hope is gone/And your life is filled with much confusion/Until happiness is just an illusion/Come on reach on out for me/I’ll be there with a love that will shelter you/I’ll be there with a love that will see you through”

Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Email him at mmiller@toledofreepress.com.

Tags: Barrett Strong, Berry Gordy, Brian Holland, Eddie Holland, Harvey Fuqua, Lamont Dozier, Lighting The Fuse, Martha Reeves, Marvin Gaye, Michael S. Miller, Nickolas Ashford, Norman Whitfield, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, The Four Tops, The Jackson 5, The Marvelettes, The Temptations, Valerie Simpson

This entry was posted on Friday, March 15th, 2013 at 10:39 am and is filed under Lighting The Fuse, Opinion, Uncategorized.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are places on Earth that absorb human energy and store it like a psychic battery. Events of great emotion create “hotspots” that retain the tenor of overwhelming sentiment.

I stop short of believing in haunted houses, but I have experienced a preternatural cold three times in my life — while standing in a train boxcar once used to transport Holocaust victims to Auschwitz; standing at the Ground Zero site in New York City; and when touching a Titanic artifact that was raised from the lost ship’s Atlantic Ocean resting place.

It is a blessing that this psychic energy is most potent and life-affirming when it is created by positive emotions, by love and creativity and that most elusive and hard-to-define entity, fun.

I first encountered that energy in Memphis, Tenn., inside the modest setting of Sun Studio. Standing in the same space where Sam Phillips recorded music by Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, B.B. King, Charlie Rich, Howlin’ Wolf, Carl Perkins, Rufus Thomas and so many others, I felt the vibrations of revolution, the confluence and tension of race, talent and the fulcrum of ambition.

But even that powerful feeling was dwarfed by a recent visit to Studio A in Detroit’s Motown headquarters, Hitsville, USA Motown Museum, less than an hour north of Downtown Toledo, has opened a new exhibit, “Girl Groups: The Grit, The Glamour, The Glory,” which honors such first ladies of Motown as Diana Ross & The Supremes, Martha Reeves and The Vandellas, The Marvelettes, The Velvelettes and The Andantes who, like their background fellows The Funk Brothers, sang on 20,000 recordings.

The exhibit, which includes fascinating information on the role women played in Motown, includes a lineup of dresses worn by the label’s superstars and archived materials from concerts and promotions. The story of Motown founder Barry Gordy Jr. is captured in video, photos and a walk through the actual rooms where he began a musical and cultural revolution.

As well known as the Motown story is, it is easy to take its impact and legacy for granted.

Gordy started the company with an $800 family loan in 1959 in his home of 2648 W. Grand Blvd. (which is now co-named Berry Gordy Jr. Boulevard). Gordy converted his garage into a studio, his kitchen into a control room and his small dining area into “shipping and receiving.” From such modest beginnings, Gordy, described by critic Dave Marsh as “the most musically talented executive in the history of the record business,” built an empire.

Studio A

The Motown statistics are staggering. Between 1961 and 1971, 163 Motown singles charted; 28 of those hit No. 1. The Supremes alone racked up 12 No. 1 records. The list of Motown artists reads like a roster of Hall of Fame rockers, and it should; in addition to Gordy, Rock Hall inductees include The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Four Tops, The Temptations, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, The Jackson 5, Gladys Knight and the Pips, sidemen Benny Benjamin and James Jamerson and writers Brian Holland, Lamont Dozer and Eddie Holland — and Mary Wells and The Marvellettes have been nominated.

The hit parade of Motown classics could choke a jukebox and fill a large portion of an iPod: “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”; “Reach Out I’ll Be There”; “Heat Wave”; “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”; “You Keep Me Hangin’; On”; “My Girl”; “My Guy”; “It Takes Two”; “I Can’t Help Myself”: “Shop Around”; “Dancing in the Street”; “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone”; “The Way You Do You the Things You Do”; “I Second That Emotion”; “What’s Going On”; “Where Did Our Love Go”; “Stop! In The Name Of Love”; “You Can’t Hurry Love”; “I Wish It Would Rain”; “ABC”; “It’s the Same Old Song”; “Standing In the Shadows of Love”; “For Once In My Life” and an overwhelming number of other landmark recordings.

Listening to Motown recordings today one can still hear the vitality and energy Gordy and his army of writers and musicians managed to capture. The Motown Museum illustrates the business and artistry of Gordy’s genius. Under glass, a single sequined glove and black fedora symbolize Michael Jackson’s presence. A gallery of album covers shows the progression from generic illustrations (because so many American record stores of the time would not display albums with black artists on them) to proud releases on Motown’s Black Forum label, which released spoken word recordings from Martin Luther King Jr., Langston Hughes and black soldiers in Vietnam.

The tour includes a glimpse of the rooms where the Gordy family began its entrepreneurial efforts; the window where Gordy once sat mailing vinyl records now frames a perfect view of the street sign proclaiming “Berry Gordy Jr. Blvd.”

But as compelling as the museum and offices are, it is Studio A that embodies rock ’n’ roll. My media tour was led by Allen C. Rawls of the Motown Museum Board of Trustees. Rawls spoke of auditioning for Motown when he was 15, and how he and kids on passing school buses would stare out the windows to see which stars were in the neighborhood. Rawls carries himself with great dignity and gravity, but his love for the Motown legacy shine through his storytelling like sharp rays of sunshine.

The control booth outside Studio A, Rawls pointed out, has deep grooves worn into the floor, where producers and engineers pounded and stomped their feet while making music that shook the world.

Stepping into Studio A, knowing one’s feet are descending steps walked on by Marvin, Stevie, Smokey, Diana, Martha and scores of other monumental artists, is a transcendent experience. The battered headphones and microphones frame the small room; it is amazing that the thundering sounds on Four Tops and Vandellas records were made in such a small and modest space. Lines between black music and white music were obliterated in Studio A. Memories of love and loss, heartbreak and triumph, were given a soundtrack in Studio A. The piano in the studio is a stand-in; the one Earl Van Dyke played on Motown classics is in New York, being refurbished courtesy of the generosity of Motown fan Paul McCartney. But the drums played by Pistol Allen, Bongo Brown and Uriel Jones are there; so is the vibraphone played by Jack Ashford.

Sun Studio promises of mischief, sex and trouble. Studio A at Motown vibrates with peace, love and soul.

When deciding which records to release, Gordy would ask his players, “If you only had $1 in the world, and you had to choose between a sandwich and this record, which would you choose?”

Having been immersed in the grit, glamour and glory of Studio A at Motown, there isn’t a sandwich on the planet I would take over any one of a hundred Motown songs.

Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Email him at mmiller@toledofreepress.com.

Tags: Andantes, Auschwitz, B.B. King, Benny Benjamin, Berry Gordy Jr., Brian Holland, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich, Detroit, Eddie Holland, Elvis Presley, Funk Brothers, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Ground Zero, Hitsville USA, Holocauset, Howlin’ Wolf, James Jamerson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Lamont Dozer, Lighting The Fuse, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye, Michael S. Miller, Motown, Motown Museum, ohnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Rufus Thomas, Sam Phillips, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, Stevie Wonder, The Four Tops, The Jackson 5, The Supremes, The Temptations, Titanic

This entry was posted on Friday, March 8th, 2013 at 12:00 am and is filed under Lighting The Fuse, Opinion.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.