Maurice King Archive Discovered...

As the membership may have gathered from my participation in the lengthy thread on sharing your Motown collectibles at the start of the pandemic, I love seeking out and acquiring the memorabilia related to Motown as much I love the music of Motown. I'm always on the hunt for anything related to Motown's Detroit days up to 1972. To me there is nothing better than being able to hold things in your hand that really weren't meant to leave the facilities on West Grand Boulevard or Woodward Ave. I'm lucky in the fact that I live in Michigan and have contacts in the record collector business that regularly scour collections in the Detroit area, and keep me in mind when anything Motown shows up.

At any rate, my trip to Detroit on May 21st was two-fold. First, I attended the "What's Going On" 50th Anniversary event at Hitsville. It was a good time and I enjoyed being there with fellow aficionados celebrating the song's release. I met Dayna Hartwick and it was fun to listen to her talk of her experiences of working at Motown, starting at the age of 15! It was very nice being in a small group of 10 people in a slower than normal paced tour. I wish they were always like this to be honest!

The second, just as exciting reason was to meet a gentleman I had connected with early this year. It was months of back and forth and eager waiting on my part, but we finally set the time to meet that day. The man I was meeting buys unclaimed storage unit contents at auction in the Detroit area. A couple of years ago he purchased a unit and concluded the contents belonged to one of Maurice King's sons. Included was the equivalent of a file cabinet's worth of papers and handwritten musical scores belonging to Maurice. OH, and a box of approximately 40 reel to reel audio tapes too! :) There is a lot of material from the years when Maurice was the musical director for the Spinners, but I am happy with the amount of Motown material I was able to discover as well. There is also a fair amount of items from the 1950's and before when Maurice led his band the Wolverines.

If there is interest, I will share some of the discoveries with the forum, and there are some really neat items! I was able to secure a reel to reel player on Monday and have reviewed the audio tapes. Wow is all I can say! I made a post yesterday asking about Chris Clark's appearances at the Roostertail. Well, I can tell you a different performance by Chris has been discovered and is likely from the Roostertail as Scott Regan is the announcer. It's approximately 13 minutes long and the quality is great. Other reels include The Temptations, Tammi Terrell, Martha and The Vandellas, Brenda Holloway, Smokey and The Miracles and more Chris Clark.

Luckily this archive was not lost to the dumpster as it very easily could have been. Most storage unit buyers would have seen a pile of old papers and a pile of spaghetti reel to reel audio tapes and threw them out, almost without a doubt.
Darin

Attachment 19145

Do we have any idea how many times Chris appeared at the Roostertail? Looking through past posts on here I can really only come up with the one date that she performed along with the Tempts. I would assume she may have performed there more than once though. Do any 60's era live performances of her exist in the public domain?
Thanks for any input.
Darin

Mickey's Monkey
Twistin' Postman
Come On Do the Jerk
Can You Jerk Like Me?
Shotgun
Hitchhike

All of the above songs were original compositions released on various Motown labels, and all contain the names of dances.

I know there are more. Can you name more songs released by Motown that contain the names of dances that are NOT covers?

LIVE CONCERT BY GLADYS & McCOO &DAVIS
PLUS SHOWING OF DOCUMENTARY

By Roger Friedman
"Summer of Soul” takes the unseen footage from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival in Mt. Morris Park and tells the story of classic soul and R&B groups coming together for a historic concert

So now, this Saturday, in Marcus Garvey Park aka Mt. Morris Park, the original venue, there will be a free outdoor screening of the documentary. And then– drum roll!– performances by Gladys Knight. and by Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr of the 5th Dimension.

The Richard Rodgers Amphitheater at Marcus Garvey Park is at 123rd St. to. The screening starts around 6:30pm so get there early. “Summer of Soul” opens nationwide and is available on Hulu on July 2,2021.


https://www.showbiz411.com/2021/06/1...urday-for-free

In some quarters HOB is listed as a gospel subsidiary of Motown.

Seem to have a couple of recognisable names on their records early on - Herman Griffin & The Rayber Voices, Voices of Tabernacle, The Contours [[though I think that may be a different group).

Berry Gordy wrote [[and arranged?) "I Need You" and "I'm So Glad" for Herman Griffin. The music for "I'm So Glad" seems to be copyright to Rayber Music Writing Co. "I Need You" is the first song published by Jobete.

I've not read much about this label so I'm guessing the Motown connection may be overplayed, or is it?

By Patrick Hipes

EXCLUSIVE: Spinning Gold, the long-in-the-works biopic about 1970s Casablanca Records chief Neil Bogart, is heating up again in time for the Cannes Virtual Market. The pic, written and directed by Bogart’s son Timothy Scott Bogart, has added Wiz Khalifa to play Parliament leader George Clinton, Tayla Parx to play Donna Summer, Ledisi to play Gladys Knight and Lyndsy Fonseca to play music manager Joyce Biawitz.

Production is now underway in New Jersey, and Capstone will introduce the film to Cannes market buyers next week.

Jeremy Jordan plays Neil Bogart in the the pic that charts the rise of his Buddah and Casablanca labels in the 1960s and ’70s with a roster that included Donna Summer, KISS, Parliament, Village People, The Isley Brothers, Gladys Knight and Bill Withers among others.


https://deadline.com/2021/06/spinnin...ic-1234777619/