Westbound Records: The Sounds Of Detroit!

[marv2]

By now all of you know that Detroit is a music town. So, so many great talent artists and music production individuals it sometimes makes my head spin. Another of the labels out of Detroit that produced some truly great music is Westbound Records. Take a moment and check out this profile on the label by NPR. [[There will be quiz shortly following........LOL!)


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=103775879

The link to the audio:

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPl...79&m=103775878

[roger]

Well that article certainly SOUNDED good, but it was full of inaccuracies and anachronisms.

My suspicions were first raised when the article started and we were told that Motown left Detroit for California in 1971 when they were still recording in Detroit into 1973, but I was willing to let that one slip by.

But then we were asked to believe that the success of DENISE LASALLE's Willie Mitchell produced "Trapped By A Thing Called Love" in late 1971 enabled Mr Mitchell to record his "new discovery" AL GREEN, when in fact Mr Green had been recording with Willie Mitchell since 1969.

Then I got totally bemused by what the writer of the article, Ed Ward, was telling me about "Feel The Need" by THE DETROIT EMERALDS, which was described as Westbound's introduction into Disco and he states only became a hit when TOM MOULTON did his remix. The article implies that this was in 1972 when the record was first released, and yet Mr Moulton's remix wasn't until 1977. In reality "Feel The Need", though only a medium sized hit in The US in 1972 [[#22 R&B on Billboard), was a huge international hit [[#4 in the UK in early 1973) and was also a popular record in discos at that time [[before records with that type of sound started to be called "Disco"). The Tom Moulton remix gave the record a welcome new lease of life in 1977 but didn't made it a hit to begin with.

Then Mr Wards thoughts on FUNKADELIC failed to point out that when they were recording for Westbound they were also recording as PARLIAMENT on Invictus. And with the OHIO PLAYERS I was surprised that there was no mention of "Funky Worm", which was easily their biggest record on Westbound.

Thinking of the article on the whole Mr Ward seems to have come up with his theme ... i.e. Motown leaves Detroit for LA, a new label starts up and it succeeds in mopping up local talent .. and then tries to fit in his article with this view of history. However in reality the labels three main acts .. THE DETROIT EMERALDS, THE OHIO PLAYERS and FUNKADELIC were already well established at Westbound when Motown was still in Detroit.

Roger