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What are you listening to?

Started by The Brain, March 10, 2009, 12:32:23 PM

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Savonarola

#6540
March 21, 2016, 03:13:36 PM
Quote from: Norgy on March 18, 2016, 04:21:12 PM
I think I discovered blues and Motown quite late, really. All I had heard was Diana Ross.
Now I can't stop listening to some amazing singers.
I'll check out Sammy Ward as well.

Here is the Motown Discography:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motown_discography unfortunately the singles listed stop at 1965.  (Looking at the #1 singles I can see why you had only heard Diana Ross.)  You can go to Amazon and type in "The Complete Motown Singles, Vol..." then start with volume 5 to get he rest of 1965; they go up to 1972 (volume 12 (a and b)) for all to the Detroit years.  I've gone through them until September of 1961 and managed to find all of the singles online; so I assume everything else is available.

If you get a chance check out "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" a documentary about the (sadly often neglected) Motown house band, The Funk Brothers.
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

Savonarola

#6541
March 21, 2016, 03:16:56 PM
On that subject:

Smokey Robinson and the Miracles – Everybody's Gotta Pay Some Dues

Similar in a lot of ways to "Shop Around," it begins with a little intro (this time based on Ravel's Bolero) and then goes into a song which again gives advice (this time from Smokey himself rather than his mother.)  Smokey and the Miracles have done the call and response thing before, but on this track they sound a lot better than ever before.  Motown had used strings before; but always as an afterthought, on this one the song was scored with them.  The single isn't just a technical improvement for Motown, though; it's a really good song as well.  It's a little surprising that it only made it to #52 on the pop charts at the time, and remains largely unknown.

The B Side I Can't Believe sounds like a slow dance song from a high school dance.  It's very pretty; but Smokey might not have been the right singer for it.  He didn't have much of a croon at this time.  Marvin Gaye might have been the perfect choice for it.
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

Josephus

#6542
March 21, 2016, 04:43:18 PM
King Crimson. Live in Toronto
Civis Romanus Sum

"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world." Jack Layton 1950-2011

Ed Anger

#6543
March 21, 2016, 07:33:33 PM
Rush. All I need is a '79 trans-am.
Stay Alive...Let the Man Drive

Savonarola

#6544
March 22, 2016, 12:26:42 PM
Of course if you do go through all the Motown singles one by one you'll run into things like:

Joel Sebastian - Angel in Blue

So this is different; Joel Sebastian delivers a spoken word story about a girl (who may be dead) and a boy in rhyme.  It's not a cappella, there's a guitar and a girl group backing him.  He does have a fine speaking voice, but his singing voice is awful as we discover on the B Side:  Blue Cinderella in which he sometimes sings tunelessly and sometimes speaks.

Joel Sebastian was a DJ in Detroit who played Motown records in the early years of the company.  Berry Gordy invited him to cut a record (oh why did we outlaw payola? :() .  The record obviously wasn't a hit (it was on the under-funded Miracle label) and Joel never recorded another track.  He left Detroit in 1966 to go to Chicago where he worked as a DJ on a variety of stations until his death in 1986.
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

Eddie Teach

#6545
March 22, 2016, 12:30:22 PM
Toto- Africa
To sleep, perchance to dream. But in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?

Savonarola

#6546
March 23, 2016, 02:31:04 PM
Mary Wells - Strange Love

This isn't what you would usually think of as either Motown or Mary Wells; it sounds like a straight out Etta James number.  It's actually very good, so much so that it made me wonder what would have happened if Wells had been on Chess rather than Motown (and not married Herman Griffin...)  Mary had a string of hits on the R&B charts before this one, and then this one failed to chart.  Motown's rule (more so a little later) is that if you had a flop you'd get a different writer for your next song.  Smokey Robinson would pen the rest of Wells hits during her Motown years; which is why she would sound more poppy later on.  She never failed to make at least the R&B charts for the rest of her stay at Motown.

The B Side Come to Me is a remake of Motown's very first single by Marv Johnson.  Wells really did have a great range; she handles this 1950s Jackie Wilson style R&B number well, but it's still a 1950s R&B number when Motown was starting to move far beyond that.  You can hear how far the band has come in just under three years on the two different versions. 
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

garbon

#6547
March 23, 2016, 03:14:32 PM
Hole - Jennifer's Body
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."

I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Savonarola

#6548
March 23, 2016, 03:31:48 PM
Tito Puente - Dance Mania (1957)

Still the best selling Latin dance album of all times; this is an amazing ride by El Rey de los Timbales.  It's all mambo with (unusual for the time) lyrics in Spanish.  The tempo is slightly slower than what Puente had at live shows, but it's still a blistering up tempo work.  Puente's music still has the power to convert the grouchiest of critics:

In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

garbon

#6549
March 23, 2016, 03:43:26 PM
Garbage - Girl Don't Come
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."

I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Eddie Teach

#6550
March 23, 2016, 04:01:45 PM
Bjork- Human Behavior. There's definitely, definitely, definitely no logic to it.
To sleep, perchance to dream. But in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?

Liep

#6551
March 24, 2016, 07:02:29 AM
Fleetwood Mac - Second Hand News
"Af alle latterlige Ting forekommer det mig at være det allerlatterligste at have travlt" - Kierkegaard

"JamenajmenømahrmDÆ!DÆ! Æhvnårvaæhvadlelæh! Hvor er det crazy, det her, mand!" - Uffe Elbæk

Savonarola

#6552
March 24, 2016, 01:46:00 PM
Freddie Gorman - The Day Will Come

A nice little mid-tempo R&B number.  Gorman was a mailman and part time songwriter in Motown's early days.  He helped write, but wasn't given songwriting credit initially, on "Mr. Postman."  Allegedly this was his compensation; just like Joel Sebastian, it was put on the Miracle label.  Unlike Joel Sebastian, Freddie Gorman could sing, he's got a nice baritone, but, like everything else on Miracle, the record didn't chart.

The B side is a straight ahead 50s rocker called Just for you

Gorman would go on to write some more songs for Motown (in fact the songwriting team was Holland-Dozier-Gorman before it was Holland-Dozier-Holland); but never had anything that brought in a lot of royalties.  He returned to his job as a postman before ending up on Ric-Tic and writing Just Like Romeo and Juliet for The Replacements.
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

garbon

#6553
March 27, 2016, 09:22:14 AM Last Edit: March 27, 2016, 09:25:16 AM by garbon
Jean Knight - Mr. Big Stuff
Rose Royce - Love Don't Live Here Anymore
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."

I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Savonarola

#6554
March 28, 2016, 04:22:20 PM
Popcorn and the Mohawks - Have I the Right

Popcorn's third (and final until the 1970s) Motown single, once again in completely different genre than his previous work.  This is a bluesy juke-joint number.  While Popcorn did have a decent voice for jazz; blues doesn't seem to work out for him.  The B-side is a 50s era rocker Real Good Lovin'.

Popcorn was a session musician (the original piano player for the Funk Brothers).  He could play in any genre; which might have been part of the problem, Motown didn't know what to do with him.  At least that seems like it could have been the problem, except Motown had another session musician with a similarly broad range that they were developing into a vocalist named Marvin Gaye...
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock
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