Quote Originally Posted by bankhousedave View Post
There's been a lot of talk about how it was somehow 'cheating' to use the Andantes on classic Motown records, but I think it all makes sense if you follow the process through.

Take the Supremes as an example. Here's one of the most popular and successful groups in the world. Rightly, they are out on the road, giving the fans what they want, and earning serious money. Making records does not earn them money - in fact, in a practice that continues to this day, it COSTS them money. Studio time, hire of the musicians, composer and arranger fees, mixing, pressing - the whole thing goes on the negative side of the ledger. Even the cost of getting the act off the road and into the studio is an expense that needs to be earned back from record sales before the performers will see any of it.

As we know, the record distributors weren't that concerned about paying the money the records earned unless Berry could fiind another hit that they wanted enough to pay for the last one.

So HDH come up with a surefire next hit. They bring it to the Funks and spend as long as it takes modifying and strenghtening elements of it, until they've got the treatment down. They use a demo singer to provide a guide vocal, and they call upon the Andantes to create backing parts which, like the Funks, they are able to do, pretty much at the drop of a hat. These are then refined until set.

The various tracks are mixed down and rhythm overdubs added if required - eiher at this stage, or to 'rescue' it at the end. Handclaps, tambourines, footstomps, plywood sheets, whatever is needed to make the track a masterpiece.

Again, either now or later, an arranger is brought in to add strings, ensemble brass and reeds - whatever else is envisaged as sweetening.

Before or after the lead vocal is added, Brian takes the tape and chops it into pieces on the floor, sticking it back together into a dynamic miracle that only he can envisage from the material.

All of this could take up to eighteen months of individual rythm sessions, overdubs, orchestral sessions. mixings, remixings, re-recordings and what all else.

If you flew all the Supremes to the studio, you would have three lots of air-fare. Their entourage would stilll have to be making their way to the next venue, and you would have to spend studio and production time teaching all of them their parts. The lead singer's voice was the most distinctive as far as the record buying public was concerned. She could be brough back to Detroit, or taken to another, nearer studio to listen to the track on the cans, follow the guide vocal, add some personal stuff and get back on the road earning money.

The other girls could learn their parts from the record by the time the charts had been written out and sent to their road musical director, Jimmy Garrett.

The Andantes couldn't just sing. They could create, and they could read parts. The time when enormous record combines would allow acts the time and money to fiddle around in studios until they came up with something were not yet upon us. Berry never had that much finanacial leeway. He had to keep that engine running. And part of that engine enabled the artists to become first class stage and TV performers; gave them the means to play the richest venues in the world.

The Andantes would have killed for that, and a fraction of the returns in terms of fame and fortune.

Still, it was steady work, at least until the day it wasn't any more.
great post dave