Lesson 10 - Lecture notes 10 PDF

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William Ryan...

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Introduction

Four Tops

As we saw a few lessons ago, many of the earliest rock and roll musicians were African American. In order to play rhythm and blues records on the radio, disc jockey Alan Freed retitled them "rock and roll." With the successes of artists such as Bill Haley, Elvis Presley, and Buddy Holly, more and more white artists began to perform rock and roll. By the 1960s, the presence of African American musicians in rock had dwindled significantly. A few black artists had some commercial success, but usually only when they had the full support of a record company or producer. Chubby Checker’s "The Twist ♫" was a smash due to its presence on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, and the African American girl singers of groups such as the Ronettes and the Crystals were chosen by producers almost as an afterthought in the recording process. The place of black musicians in rock had shifted by the 1960s, and many artists were headed toward a new genre of music called soul.

“My listening changed when I heard music from Stax, Atlantic, Motown because by that age I thought anything that my parents listened to must be square. So I had to find my own rock n' roll, as it were, and I found it in black soul music.” -Robert Palmer

“A big part of the Motown formula was, they took music and turned it into this sort of automotive assembly line. They were cranking out 10 songs a day in that studio, or more.” -Mayer Hawthorne

"The backing band on almost all of the Motown recordings are a group of highly dedicated and tight-knit group of musicians called The Funk Brothers. The surviving members received The Grammy Legend Award in 2004 and were induced into The Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville in 2007" Flying Music

The African American Presence in Pop

Sam Cooke

In the late 1950s and into the 1960s, a genre of popular music performed by African American musicians called sweet soul became popular with both black and white audiences. These songs had enormous crossover appeal in their pop-styled lyric delivery. Most of the songs were a moderate tempo, not too fast and not too slow. The fluid vocal melody was supported by backup vocals in the doo-wop style. Unlike rhythm and blues music, the sweet soul style usually featured string instruments, and the drummer’s rhythms often included Latin beats. The songwriting

team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller wrote a number of sweet soul songs that the Drifters made into hits, including "Save the Last Dance for Me ♫," "On Broadway ♫," and "There Goes My Baby ♫." When lead singer Ben E. King was fired from the Drifters, he began a solo career with the help of Leiber and Stoller, recording hits such Harlem ♫" and "Stand by Me ♫." as "Spanish

Drifters

This light, "sweet soul" style was nowhere more apparent than in the music of Sam Cooke. Between 1957 and 1965, Cooke wrote and recorded 29 singles that appeared in the Top 40 pop charts. Before he began recording pop songs, however, Cooke was well known as a gospel singer. In fact, his first pop records were released under a different name so as not to negatively affect his reputation as a singer of gospel music. The success of Ray Charles in the early 1950s had indicated to record executives that gospel music could potentially supply a stream of singers for rhythm and blues numbers. Cooke’s style shows the clear influences of gospel music in his frequent use of melisma (the singing of multiple pitches on a single syllable of text) as well as his improvisatory-sounding style and frequent melodic embellishments. "You Send Me ♫," Twistin’ the Night Away ♫" (which was inspired by Chubby Checker’s "The

Twist ♫"), and "Chain Gang ♫" all demonstrate Cooke’s ability to balance pop, gospel, and rhythm and blues influences in his singing style. His song "A Change is Gonna Come ♫," written by Curtis Mayfield, is often considered a theme from the Civil Rights Movement because it plaintively and unashamedly addresses issues of racism and racial inequality.

“Motown was about music for all people - white and black, blue and green, cops and the robbers. I was reluctant to have our music alienate anyone.” -Berry Gordy

“Soul lyrics, soul music came at about the same time as the civil rights movement, and it's very possible that one influenced the other.” -Ahmet Ertegun

"Sam Cooke was one of many R&B acts to tour extensively on the "chitlin' circuit," the name given to segregated clubs and venues that were friendly to African-American musicians during the segregated years of the 1950s-1960s. " Songfacts

Motown

Berry Gordy, Jr

Some of the earliest soul music happened in Detroit in December of 1960 with the release of "(My Mama Told Me You’d Better Shop Around ♫)," words and music by William "Smokey" Robinson and Berry Gordy, Jr. In the early months of 1961, it was in the Top Ten charts. It was a strong opening for a brand new musical group and a brand new record company, Motown. In 1959—the same year that Don Kirshner started Aldon Music and established the Brill Building style— Berry Gordy, Jr. borrowed eight hundred dollars from his family, and he rented an eight-room house at 2648 West Grand Boulevard. Gordy first called his new

company Hitsville U.S.A., and then he changed the name to Motown in recognition of Detroit’s fame as the Motor City. Motown was one of the largest and most successful businesses owned and operated by African Americans. Gordy was a devotee of Booker T. Washington’s philosophy of economic betterment, and he built Motown as an African American enterprise that focused on community and self-reliance. Through the period of racial unrest and riots in the 1960s, Motown artists sang of love and other human concerns with which people of all races, religions, and political beliefs could identify. Gordy cultivated in his performers a sophisticated image, and many black Americans saw the Motown performers as role models. In his seventh year of business (1967), Gordy sold more singles than any other record company in the world, independent or major, and his empire was profiled in Fortune, the New York Times, and several other major publications. It is estimated that an astronomical 75% of all Motown releases ended up somewhere in the Top 40, a number to which other record companies could aspire but could never achieve. Gordy mixed the elements of previous African American and pop music styles to arrive at a product that would appeal to the market —classic saxophone-driven big band riffs, gospel tambourines, hand-clapping backbeats, lush orchestra strings from the Detroit Symphony for the slow tunes, and strong bass lines laid down below Latin- and jazz-tinged rhythm patterns. He avoided suggestive lyrics or gritty sounds for two reasons. One, he wanted to appeal to white teenage listeners. Two, he wanted to prevent white artists from covering his songs, and if the version by a black artist was palatable to whites, then there would be no need for white cover versions. Gordy not only oversaw the music of Motown, but he also cultivated

specific looks and images for his performers. He wanted to create a carefully-crafted image of middle class African Americans to present to the rest of the country. Gordy hired modeling school director Maxine Powell, who taught the young performers how to make small talk at cocktail parties, how to hold their silverware at a banquet, how to move and act with the grace and style, and how to dress. The performers called Powell’s training "the charm school." Gordy wanted his performers to be prepared to enter the highest realms of society and to behave gracefully. Powell often told her students that she was training them to appear at Buckingham Palace and at the White House. Gordy also hired Cholly Atkins, a dancer and choreographer in the legendary 1930s Cotton Club revues, and Maurice King, the music director for big name jazz acts at Detroit’s famous Flame Show Bar. Atkins and King would not let the musicians perform until they had learned their stage lessons. Motown artists were classy, elegant, impeccably dressed, and perfectly mannered, all of which were carefully manipulated by Gordy and his team.

“Soul lyrics, soul music came at about the same time as the civil rights movement, and it's very possible that one influenced the other.” -Ahmet Ertegun

“Motown was about music for all people - white and black, blue and green, cops and the robbers. I was reluctant to have our music alienate anyone.” -Berry Gordy

"The backing band on almost all of the Motown recordings are a group of highly dedicated and tight-knit group of musicians called The Funk Brothers. The surviving members received The Grammy Legend Award in 2004 and were induced into The Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville in 2007" Flying Music

Motown Continued

The Temptations

The Motown studio musicians were mostly jazz performers who enjoyed the new financial rewards of working for Motown Records: Benny Benjamin on drums, Earl Van Dyke or Joe Hunter on keyboards, Dave Hamilton on vibes or lead guitar, James Jamerson or Carol Kaye on bass, and Robert White on rhythm guitar. Secretaries and friends filled in on tambourines and handclapping. To get more backbeat, a studio carpenter had bolted a couple of two-by-fours together with a hinge. It could make a strong and crisp smack on counts two and four of the measure. This layered big-band mix was captured at different times on two homemade eight-track tape recorders. Producers could bring in the rhythm section, horns and strings, background singers, and lead vocalists all at different times while recording, and this approach made all the difference in the final product. A young electronics wizard named Michael McClain built these eight-track facilities, and Motown was one of the first record companies to use this approach to recording. Most other companies were still using two- and fourtrack recording systems. Like Aldon Publishing, Berry Gordy and Motown employed several songwriting teams who were responsible for writing most of the major Motown hits in the 1960s. Brothers Brian and Eddie Holland and Lamont Dozier (known collectively as Holland-Dozier-Holland or HDH) wrote and produced all of the Supremes' hits from 1964 and to early 1968. They also wrote most of the material recorded by the Four Tops and the Isley Brothers during the years between 1965 and1968. They composed several tunes for the Miracles and for Martha and the Vandellas. Typically, Eddie Holland worked with the vocal leads in the various groups, Lamont Dozier helped with vocal backgrounds and instrumental tracks, and Brian Holland handled the overall composition and assisted with backup vocal tracks. Another important songwriting duo at Motown was that of Strong

and Whitfield. Barrett Strong gave up a singing career to write songs for others. He and writer-producer Norman Whitfield had a string of hits for Gladys Knight and the Pips and the Temptations. They also penned Motown’s biggest hit of the 1960s, "I Heard It Through the Grapevine ♫," which was recorded by Marvin Gaye.

Smokey Robinson

Holland-Dozier-Holland, Strong and Whitfield, and other Motown songwriters often took a portion of a song’s chorus to use as an introduction, which can be heard in The Supremes’ "Stop! In the Name of Love ♫" (1965). Another feature of most Motown songs is a harmonic modulation that occurs about two-thirds of the way through the song; in most cases, the key of the song would move up a half step before the final choruses. Like other songwriters, Motown songwriters also introduced a hook—a catchy phrase or melodic motive that would hook the listener into buying the record. Unlike other songwriters, Motown hooks usually did not appear until

later in the song, whereas other popular tunes of the time had hooks from the very beginning of the song. In addition to HDH and Strong and Whitfield, one of the best songwriters for Motown was Smokey Robinson. Robinson was not only a gifted songwriter but also a performer in his own right. When Gordy first began his record label, the first group he put on the payroll was Smokey Robinson and the Matadors. Changing their name to the Miracles, they plunged in to make the idea of Motown work. So obvious was Robinson’s talent and business skill that Gordy named him vice president in 1961, well before the corporation had any major success at all. The Miracles eventually rose to the top of the industry with dozens of Top 40 hits, including five songs in the Top Ten. Smokey Robinson did it all— gifted vocalist, songwriter, producer, adviser, business executive, talent scout, premier backup singer, and emotional anchor of Motown. His compositions are outstanding representations of the Motown sound from the 1960s: "My Guy ♫," "I Second That Emotion ♫," and "My Girl ♫," to name a few.

“Soul lyrics, soul music came at about the same time as the civil rights movement, and it's very possible that one influenced the other.” -Ahmet Ertegun

“My listening changed when I heard music from Stax, Atlantic, Motown because by that age I thought anything that my parents listened to must be square. So I had to find my own rock n' roll, as it were, and I found it in black soul music.” -Robert Palmer

According to founder Ahmet Ertegun, "Atlantic's first headquarters were in a brokendown hotel on Fifty-Sixth Street, between Sixth and Broadway, called the Jefferson, which was condemned as unsafe soon after we moved in. I had rented a tiny suite on the ground floor, slept in the bedroom, and the living room was the Atlantic office." Rolling Stone

Motown Continued

The Supremes

Motown Records took the idea of the "girl group" to its artistic height with its cultivation of ensembles like the Marvelettes, the Velvelettes, and Martha and the Vandellas. The quintessential Motown girl group from the 1960s, the Supremes began in the model of the Phil Spector girl groups of the early 1960s and achieved phenomenal success during their recording career. The trio consisted of Detroit teenagers Florence Ballard, Diana Ross, and Mary Wilson, and they loitered around Motown offering to sing backup and trying to convince Gordy to sign them to his label. Working almost exclusively with the HDH team, the group struck gold and released six hit singles in a row: "Where Did Our Love Go? ♫" "Baby Love ♫," "Come See About Me ♫," "Stop! In the Name of Love ♫," and "Back in My Arms Again ♫." Although Ballard was originally the lead singer of the group, HDH decided that Ross’s voice was more evocative and begin writing for her as the lead. In 1969, Ross left the group to start her own solo career. The song "Baby Love ♫" (1964) represents the Supremes’ sound, the HDH style, and the Motown recording approach, all in under three minutes. The strong backbeats on beats two and four are

produced with the slapping hinged two-by-fours. This song also features the vibraphone, an instrument that was often used in Motown songs. The song is in simple verse form, meaning that it contains only verses and no choruses. Over seven verses, Ross sings the lead and the other singers provide the backup vocals. A half-step modulation in the fifth verse adds a sense of excitement for the remaining verses. If the Supremes represented the girl group side of Motown, then the Temptations were Motown’s top male group. Both Smokey Robinson and Norman Whitfield wrote and produced songs for the Temptations during the 1960s. The Temptations had a smooth, tight vocal style that came directly out of the doo-wop tradition. They also were remarkable dancers who often performed immaculatelychoreographed dances, such as the Temptation Walk. The Temptations’ first big hit was "The Way You Do the Things You Do ♫" (1964), which was produced by Robinson. "The Way You Do the Things You Do ♫" is verse-chorus form, and, like "Baby Love ♫," it includes a half-step modulation just before the third verse begins. The vocal lines in each verse frequently engage in call and response with each other. Robinson went on to produce "My Girl ♫" and "Get Ready ♫" for the group, but Gordy replaced him with Whitfield in 1966 with the hopes of replicating the commercial success of "The Way You Do the Things You Do ♫." Motown was a remarkable label that produced dozens of stars during the 1960s. It launched the careers of the Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Martha and the Vandellas, and many others. Despite Motown’s success, though, it was not the only record label that was producing soul music.

“A big part of the Motown formula was, they took music and turned it into this sort of automotive assembly line. They were cranking out 10 songs a day in that studio, or more.” -Mayer Hawthorne

“Motown was about music for all people - white and black, blue and green, cops and the robbers. I was reluctant to have our music alienate anyone.” -Berry Gordy

"The backing band on almost all of the Motown recordings are a group of highly dedicated and tight-knit group of musicians called The Funk Brothers. The surviving members received The Grammy Legend Award in 2004 and were induced into The Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville in 2007" Flying Music

Atlantic and Stax

Otis Redding

Atlantic was formed in 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun, the son of the Turkish ambassador to the United States. Journalist and critic Jerry Wexler joined Atlantic in 1953, and he was a critical force in the signing and recording of such artists as Ray Charles, Wilson Pickett, and Aretha Franklin. Atlantic prided itself on created a sound that was different from the sweet soul of Sam Cooke and from the Motown sounds produced by Berry Gordy in Detroit. Atlantic focused on a style called southern soul, which drew significant influence from gospel music and was

typically more enthusiastic and expressive than its northern counterparts. Many white listeners believed that gospel music was an "authentic" expression of African American culture, and, for better or for worse, the crossover success of Atlantic recording artists took advantage of this white fascination with the sounds of gospel-influenced southern soul music. They worked closely with a smaller label, Stax, in order to find the artists who best captured this sound and style. Stax was a small, Memphis-based label that formed a relationship with Atlantic during the 1960s. Frequently, a large record company would license recordings from smaller record labels; this allowed small labels to focus their energies on recording new and exciting musicians while large labels handled the pressing of records and the promotional aspects, both of which were often beyond the financial means of a small company. During the 1960s, Atlantic had right of first refusal on any music produced by Stax, an arrangement which proved to be beneficial for both companies. Like Motown, Stax relied on a studio band. Booker T and the MGs provided the music for artists such as Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, and Sam and Dave. Unlike Motown’s studio band, Booker T and the MGs did not play from prepared arrangements. Instead, they often came up with their backing tracks on the spot. The Stax sound included a horn introduction and a delayed backbeat, in which the entrances of the guitar and snare on beats 2 and 4 come so late on the beat that they almost feel like they are out of time. Like the music of Motown, most Stax songs are in simple verse form and do not use choruses. Booker T and the MGs also achieved some success as a band, recording "Green Onions ♫" in 1962, which went to number 1 on the rhythm and blues charts. Another huge hit-maker for Stax (and Atlantic) was the singer-

songwriter Otis Redding. Redding recorded a number of crossover hits during the 1960s, including "These Arms of Mine ♫," "Try a Little Tenderness ♫," and "Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay ♫." Redding was at his best when he sang ballads, and his gospelsoaked vocal style bro...