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Old 07-03-2008, 05:26 PM   #81
DMcCunney
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Quote:
Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel View Post
oh, yes, i am an enthusiastic (if not unconditional) motown fan. that is to say that i like some of it very much, and some of it i can take or leave. but when i'm in the mood for that, i really don't want to listen to much else.
Motown produced great music, but got brickbats for business practices. Founder/CEO Berry Gordy ruled with an iron hand, and brooked no dissent. Temptations lead singer David Ruffin wanted to leave the group and go solo. Gordy disagreed. Ruffin's solo career was largely torpedoed by Gordy for disobeying him. Stevie wonder once expressed frustration, after attending a meeting of Motown execs and presenting the material for his new album. They heard "Superstition", and weren't interested in anything else. That was the killer top 40 radio track, and that was all they cared about. Wonder was trying to produce an entire album, but they were firmly rooted in the single as the product.

Some of the Motown session guys have popped up lately touring as a group. They played on many hit Motown records, as largely anonymous session men. They didn't get rich, since they didn't get royalties and made standard union session fees, but there was a lot of work, and many got houses and boats from the income they made as session players. It's nice to see them step into the spotlight under their own names, and I think they've gotten more than a few comments at gigs along the lines of "Oh, yeah! You're the one who played that great popping bass line on that Temp's cut! I learned how to play bass because I wanted to play like that!

Quote:
hehe, i looked it up on youtube... the only version of that song i knew is the one by the Grateful Dead (my dad loves them, they were the soundtrack to most of my childhood). i didn't even know that it was a Buddy Holly song originally, or that the Stones covered it later... clearly my musical culture has some large holes in it.
I credit rock with greatly expanding mine. I paid attention when rock bands began playing blues, country and jazz tunes, and said "Hmmmm. Let's go pick up albums by the guys these guys listened to when they were learning to play." 1,500 albums later...

Quote:
oh, that would have driven me completely crazy. before the days of online playlists i used to make lists of songs i heard on the radio that i wanted identified : "14h17, something something lalala petite fleur lalala... 14h23, lala baby baby lalala..." and then call the radio station. the one i listened to the most was Radio Nova (listen online !) and since (at the time, anyway) they were a smallish operation it was always the same guy who answered the phone (he was an intern, so he got all the crappy jobs). i drove him nuts because i would make him look up dozens of songs at a time, and he was occasionally quite rude to me, but since i took it as a joke and was quite sassy back to him we eventually became friends and would go out for drinks. i like to think that it's (at least partially) thanks to me that the site has the "what was that song ???" feature ("c'était quoi ce titre ?") which allows you to search the archives. (you're welcome.)
I got to be friends with a couple of the late night DJs. One in particular said "I assume my audience is stoned, balling, tripping, or all three, and program accordingly." I think he liked me because I could call him at 3AM and have a coherent conversation.
______
Dennis
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