soundevaluations: December 2021

Written by Claude Lemaire

For Part-2: http://soundevaluations.blogspot.com/2021/09/diving-into-disco-part2.html

I got somethin' that makes me wanna shouta

I got somethin' that tells me what it's all about

I got soul and I'm super bad

Blues migrated towards the urban centres, electrifying guitars and gigs along its route, as black musicians fleeing the southern racial segregation, strived for more economic opportunities and a better life in cities like Detroit, Chicago and New York.

Blending blues, boogie-woogie, and swing generated jump blues in the 1940s. By 1948 Billboard magazine's music journalist Jerry Wexler would coin the term rhythm and blues as a replacement for "race music" or "race records"–the latter, a segregated term for a segregated society often used back then by both sides of the business–and a few years later would play a significant role as record producer for Atlantic Records, one of the first and most influential R&B and rock label.

The dividing bridge between jump blues, R&B, and rock & roll would prove a narrow one; perhaps more semantic than clear-cut as the latter genre was largely first promoted by radio disk jockey Alan Freed as a means of getting white teens to embrace black music in a 'nonthreatening' way.

Do you like good music

That sweet soul music

Combining gospel with rhythm and blues, soul music mixed the sacred with the secular, starting in June 1959 with Ray Charles iconic R&B-soul hybrid hit "What'd I Say" perfectly capitalizing on a call and response between him, his Raelettes' backing vocals, and the horn section of his orchestra. This ménage à trois part of the song creating quite a stir at the time.

"Hitsville U.S.A." It's like a heat wave

That same year, January 12, would mark Motown's inception in Detroit. Michigan's "Motor City", once the backbone of America's thriving blue-collar industrial workforce, was dominated by the Big Three–Ford, GM, and Chrysler.

After a first encounter with seventeen-year-old singer Smokey Robinson in 1957, Berry Gordy Jr. borrowed 800 bucks from family, and soon created the most successful–African American-owned–soul label.

Briefly hired as an auto assembly worker for Ford-Lincoln-Mercury, he observed and later applied their manufacturing methods as an efficient music business model, coordinated to conquer not only the sound of Black America but that of White America as well, or rather "The Sound of Young America" following the company's slogan.

He took a multipronged approach to paving his highway to hits–dominating the charts from 1963 to 1972–before being overtaken by newer labels and competing music directions. Some of those key aspects to success were A&R scouts recruiting a large pool of young fresh eager black singers, whom charm and artist development manager Maxine Powell would figuratively and literally groom, coach, and dress, while choreographer Cholly Atkins developed the trademark Motown moves–both individuals shaped their whole public persona to project a polished image of clean 'class' style to the wider white dominant American audience.

Of course the talented team of hit composers, arrangers, and producers going by the trio moniker of Holland-Dozier-Holland–Lamont Dozier and brothers Brian and Eddie Holland–aka H-D-H kept the round the clock supply chain churning out hit after hit until their departure in 1967.

Along with other writers they were musically backed by The Funk Brothers. These non-credited Detroit session musicians–which included among others keyboardist Earl Van Dyke and bassist James Jamerson–formed the backbeat of Motown's house band and the famous Motown Sound.

This magic formula gravitated towards short songs averaging around 2:40 long–not far from the average for that period–dynamically compressed, and equalized so as to emphasize the upper-mids and treble without much bass below 65 Hz. Berry reasonably figured that his target audience was teenagers and (non-audiophile) adults buying hit singles. Now keep in mind that up until 1968 about, the two main conduits for listening to music was via AM radio and jukeboxes which were quite limited in bandwidth, boomy in the bass and lower-mids, and shelving rapidly in the high frequencies, so Motown's ascending tonal balance compensated to a degree, and cut through better than other competing labels of the day. It is said that the Beatles and the team working at EMI studios at times tried to emulate the Motown bass and compressed presence.

That is not to say that it was not well recorded. On the contrary it was well recorded but would benefit greatly today if some label would remix the multitrack–all the while respecting the original spirit of the song–and remaster it more full range like MoFi or Analogue Productions generally do. In fact, if one would remix and extend with some instrumental passages thrown in, many of the Motown hits would sound quite close to certain disco styles and songs.

They recorded at "Hitsville U.S.A."; the two-story house situated at 2648 West Grand Boulevard, that served as recording studio and administrative office on the ground floor, and Berry's living quarters and A&R division on the second floor. It is now the Motown Museum.

In tandem with Motown Records were the Tamla as well as the Gordy labels, with no apparent artistic differences between both.

'Soulsville, USA'

In a alternate universe with Detroit Michigan's Motown, was Memphis Tennessee's Stax Records–the latter a portmanteau for Jim Stewart and his sister Estelle Axton–founded in 1961 after converting country-oriented Satellite Records just four years in its infancy. Whereas Berry kept a tight rein on every aspect, focusing on a light uplifting bright pop-soul sound, Stax and its subsidiary Volt label dished out dirtier organic southern soul food relying on roots and rhythm and blues as the recipe's main ingredients. They were well catered by their own soul kitchen cooks aka Booker T. & the M.G.'s–no wonder their debut signature song and biggest hit was titled "Green Onions" released in September 1962. This house band featured Booker T. Jones on organ and piano, Steve Cropper on guitar, Al Jackson Jr. on drums, and Lewie Steinberg on bass, later replaced by Donald "Duck" Dunn in 1965–a racially integrated group which was a real rarity at that time.

Despite releasing several albums under their own name along the way, they are best remembered for their behind the scenes work, laying the foundation for soul giants Rufus Thomas and daughter Carla, Otis Redding, and Wilson Pickett just to name a few–thus creating what would be known as the Memphis Sound.

Back in Detroit, the team of H-D-H penned the first song moulding that "Motown Sound" with Martha and the Vandellas surfing a "Heat Wave" in July 1963. The group would have a second big hit exactly one year later with "Dancing in the Street" while singer Mary Wells would become a "one-hit wonder" with the single "My Guy" in March of '64.

Come summer, that tide would rise several levels with the first of a string of number one hits–for a total of twelve throughout the decade no less–for Motown's most successful act of all time, The Supremes.

Led by singer Diana Ross–and later billed as Diana Ross & The Supremes starting in July 1967–the trio also featured Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson in the beginning, followed by Cindy Birdsong replacing Ballard in 1967 because of Ballard's drinking problem. After a lackluster debut album–Meet The Supremes–in December 1962, the trio hit their stride with "Where Did Our Love Go" released in June 1964 first as a single, and in August with their second album under the same name.

In addition to the title-track, it contained their next two hit singles, the upbeat "Baby Love", and "Come See About Me"; all signed H-D-H.

These three tracks represent the first time that a steady backbeat is prominent throughout a song providing a direct path to disco's main rhythmic componant. That common thread comes out even stronger on "Stop! In the Name of Love" with its metronomic 116 bpm in February 1965, succeeded by "Back in My Arms Again" in April, the last of five consecutive number-one hits–the latter two appearing on their sixth studio album More Hits by The Supremes later in July.