Power To The Motown People

[Guest SoulBoogieAlex]

https://soul-shack.blogspot.com/2007/12/pow...own-people.html

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The history of Soul is filled with mythology building. Just like in any other genre, myths are sometimes built to add to an artists shine or a label's reputation. Mostly mythology building is done by fans whose memories of their favorite artists or shows is colored by the rose glasses they see their idols through. That's how the abusive and coke snorting Marvin Gaye became one of the genres most beautiful souls. A saint almost. All on the basis of his ground breaking "What's Going On" album. Fans tend to black out the more nasty sides of their heroes. Sometimes labels actively help this process. The new Motown compilation "Power To The Motown People" is one of those active attempts at myth building. Starting with the raised fist, the symbol of Black power in the seventies, on the cover with the Motown logo embedded, this round up of Motown's more political work is an attempt to rewrite history.

While it is true that Motown had political or rather social and cultural significance as one of the first Black economic industry forces, it is simply not true that Motown was an active political force. "Power To The Motown People" tries to suggest otherwise with liner notes filled with pictures of the Black power movement. Truth is, the only color Berry Gordy, Motown's chief and the embodiment of the label, saw was green, dollar green. Motown's chief goal was to move product and social activity was not the way to make a dollar. Motown came up in a time when being to outspoken could cause an artist his career. Although some of Motown's early singles did signify the struggle of the Black man, none of Motown's artists ever made it explicit and Gordy was quick to ax singles that did. While Barret Strong's single "I Need Some Money" or the Miracles "Got a Job" spoke mainly to the plights of the Ghetto where money and good jobs were hard to come by, no one but the attentive listener would ever see them cultural or political statements. Marvin Gaye's first social messaging was firmly disguised in a popular dance tune, Martha Reeves and the Vandella's "Dancing in the Street".

Motown as an economic force fit tightly in Doctor King's dream of social inclusion, but was never motivated by more than Berry Gordy's dream of making it big. Countless books have been written on Motown, most of them agree on this. While there are a few writers such as Suzanne E. Smith, author of "Dancing in the Street, Motown and the cultural politics of Detroit" who make a forced attempt to make Motown sound more radical than it really was, writers like Gerald Posner were more on the money. "Skipping the Revolution" is Posner's apt title to the chapter in which he deals with Motown's political activism in his book "Motown, music, money sex and power". Posner even quotes a somewhat proud Gordy claiming "In all the camps there seemed to be one constant - Motown music. They were all listening to it. Black and White. Militant and nonviolent. Anti war demonstrators and the pro-war establishment". Motown had achieved its goal of becoming the sound of young America not by being outspoken but by offering and escape from the complex realities of the streets. In the summer of love Motown harked back to a simpler time with almost an nostalgic feel to the music.

Motown's eventual careful strides into politics were incited by Gordy's much coveted dollar when Black DJs shortly banned Motown in 1968. the DJs felt Motown had abandoned them and criticized Gordy's lack of political involvement. Gordy experienced the tight solidarity of the Black community, a wake up call for Gordy who felt the sting of lost sales caused by the short ban. In order to polish up his image Gordy shortly formed a new label "Black Forum", releasing some of Matin Luther King's and Stokely Carmichael's speeches on wax. An initiative quickly abandoned when the label failed to make any sales. These days Black Forum is more of interest for historians as Gordy caught "The Great March of Freedom" speech by King on tape, but it hardly signifies Motown as an active political force. With Soul's radical feel being one of the attraction to the record buying public today its an image Motown might want to correct.

"Power To The Motown People" chronicles Motown's more outspoken releases from the late sixties to the mid seventies. It also chronicles a period in Motown's history where Berry Gordy lost quite a bit of grip on his label. Star struck by Hollywood, Gordy had relocated his base of operations to California. Uprooting Motown and killing the last strand of family atmosphere that played such a key role in Motown's early success. Gordy soon got involved with big movie projects, such as a Billie Holiday biopic (a star vehicle for Diane Ross), that took up much of his time and he started to neglect the music side of his business. The Friday quality meetings that were instrumental in his grasp on what was released were disbanded, allowing producers considerably more freedom in the records that hit the market. More importantly, Motown's prime song writing team Holland-Dozier-Holland, responsible for much of the labels biggest hits, left. Gordy hadn't been paying enough attention to notice their disgruntlement and proved to be to late to prevent them from taking their talent elsewhere. The much more outspoken Norman Whitfield took over their role as money making machine. Like Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, Whitfield used the freedom created by the disbanding of the Friday meetings to create material that was uncharacteristically involved and even radical for the label, with enormous commercial success.

Whitfield is one of the most featured Motown stars of this compilation. As a producer he used many of Motown's established stars for his psychedelic, Sly Stone and George Clinton inspired, Funk experiments. Redeeming to this compilation is the fact that it doesn't go for the obvious hits. We get the Temptation's version of "War" as opposed to Edwin Starr's, and the latter's version of "Cloud Nine". Demonstrating how much it was Norman Whitfield we heard through those artists and showing how Norman could mold his own songs to fit that particular artist's voice. Heavily featured on this compilation is Whitfield's very own vehicle the Undisputed Truth, a Funkadelic like band that served as a play ground in which Norman could try out much of psychedelic ideas before making them into money making singles for other (established) artists. Also here is the more involved material of Jackson 5 producer Willie Hutch. Responsible for the hits of this sugar coated last traditional Motown money making machine, Willie also wrote a few political Funk classics, most notably included here "Borther's Gonna Work It Out". With Hutch Motown also ventured into the Blaxploitation sound tracks, with him writing scores for "The Mack" and "Foxy Brown". Undeniably pulp movies now, but at the time the Blaxploitation movies signified the unstoppable march of the Black man. With characters as Shaft and Foxy Brown the Black movie industry created their own nappy super heroes and James Bonds, Funky and sexy as hell.

With Whitfield at the production reals, with Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder taking control of their own material, Motown would soon gain a nappy radical shine for those who needed the label to have one. Though Motown never got as involved as Stax did in Memphis under the reign of Al Bell, I think a lot of Motown's fans were glad to at least get the impression that Motown was involved in the times. As hard as this compilation tries, it was never more than just that, an impression.