Going back to motown

[marv2]

This is a nice little Doc. you should check out:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpqD3IHdXxM

[westgrandboulevard]

Very nice Marv, and very interesting. Thank you for sharing......

[marv2]

Very nice Marv, and very interesting. Thank you for sharing......

You are most welcome Westgrandboulevard.

[woodward]

A very well presented presentation. I hope everyone spares the time to read this. I am sure they will learn something that they did not know.

[snakepit]

Enjoyed that video, thanks.
However, some of the 'history' of Motown is being 'massaged' I fear.
By 1966 , a lot of the recordings were shared between studio A [[ Hitsville) and studio B [[Golden World). It's clear from the wonderful annotations we now get on CDs, that a lot of 'sweetening' such as strings, vocals, overdubs etc were done at 'B'.
I've read that some producers were superstitious and preferred to record the rythym tracks at Hitsville...but most records would be a mixture of both studios.
To suggest that everything was done in A is misleading...a good tale, but plain wrong.
Also, by the mid 60s , artists and musicians rarely met for recordings.
And the rooms referred to...horns etc....I don't think existed as stated.....I believe that they had other functions, such as disc cutting?

[motownjohnny]

Snakepit, to pick up on your last point about the side rooms and what they were used for here is a quote taken directly from "Motown, The History" by Sharon Davis that hopefully clarifies this point on their use ,as well as giving a brief overview of the studio layout:

"The room [[studio) was poky and claustrophobic, and the soundproofed walls did little to contain the music. A cubicle big enough for one leas singer stood near the console board, where the producer or producers, would oversee the recordings, leaving backing vocalists to fight for spare microphones. A toilet which doubled as an echo chamber was annexed to the studio. It was a musical sweat shop. Author Nelson George reported: 'The control room had two Ampex 8-track machines near the wall next to the door. Engineers like Mike McClain and Lawrence Horn and some of the other producers had, through trial and error, built the original 3-track recording machine into an 8-track by the mid-Sixties. Microphone cables hung from the ceiling like branches of black licorice sticks. Looking over the main 8-track console into the studio you'd see chairs positioned there for guitar and bass players. The piano was to their immediate left and the drums diagonally across from the piano. ...Side rooms had been built into the wall next to the piano after Berry Gordy had purchased the building next door. There vibes, organ and percussion instruments were usually stationed. There was no room for large amplifiers in the studio, the guitar and bass were right into the console and were heard through the room's one speaker'."

There is no mention here that these side rooms were used for any other function like disc cutting as you suggest, though through time as circumstances required they may have been adapted to do so.

To put the above into some approximate time-frame, the original building on West Grand [[2648) was purchased on 2 August 1959 with 2644 / 2646 next door being acquired on 18 April 1961 as offices for Jobete Publishing. The building immediately next door on the other side of "Hitsville" at 2650 was purchased as offices for Berry Gordy, Esther Gordy-Edwards and Ralph Seltzer on 23 January 1962 along with 2652 / 2654 to house the Administration Department. 2650 was unfortunately completely burned down in 1971 and occupied what is today a vacant patch of ground to the immediate left of the "Hitsville" Museum. From the above, It would appear therefore that the side rooms must have been added after the purchase of 2644 / 2646 in April 1961.

For anyone wishing to read more, the above quote can be found on page 18 of Chapter 1 entitled "The Early Years" in the Hardback copy of Sharon Davis's book mentioned at the start of this post.

[snakepit]

Motownjohnny
Thanks for that.
When I visited Hitsville, a couple of rooms, off to right as you enter, were used to house a disc cutting machine and other equipment. Perhaps that is where I got the idea from.
One room had been designated as a 'tribute' room to the musicians.
As my friend and I had a look around, and no doubt discussed the contens, photos etc, 3 elderly ladies were there . One of them approached us and asked if we had heard of Gordon Staples.
I told her that we he knew about him, and that I had his 45.!
She told me that she was his music teacher ...school or Detroit Symphony Orchestra I'm not sure.