"Greetings! We're The Monitors" The Album That Hipped Me to The Motown Engineers
My CD of "Greetings! We're The Monitors" has been on heavy rotation for a few days. I remember the day I got this album in the mail, 1983. I was in 11th grade. I had won the album in a mail-in auction [[well before the internet). When I got home from school, there was this big package on my bed and I excitedly tore that thing to shreds trying to see my prize. Wow, the vivid colors [[purple, yellow a great color photo of The Monitors) told me that this was going to be a really good album. I had no idea.
This was one of the albums that I played from front to back and never found a dull spot in 12 tracks. The music was just so good and it was primo Motown, that mid 60's sound I loved so much. I kept thinking why I had never heard these songs before and why the group wasn't more well-known. I just sat transfixed, staring at the cover and reading and re-reading the liner notes. I thought that they looked like a fun group of people and Sandra Fagin was one of THE most beautiful women I had ever seen.
The one song, though, that I kept coming back to was "Time Is Passin' By." I thought this song was THE MOTOWN song! This was pure, 100% The Motown Sound, everything I liked about Motown. One thing though that I noticed was how pristine the sound was, how perfectly balanced everything was. I had never given thought to it before, but this song, this album was the first time I considered that may have been more to the sound Motown got than the producers. I think I had the impression that producers also did the mixing and whatever else to get the sounds onto tape. But then listening to "Time Is Passin' By", the sound was just way too good.
There was a technical perfection that I realized could not have come from anyone except someone who was knowledgeable about sound levels, EQs and whatever other terms I'd never understand. I kept thinking there must be another step or person involved in the recording process that I hadn't thought about. I was young and learning, but I do remember this was when I had the thought of some kind of engineer.
Through the years I learned that of course there were sound engineers! This site was a big part of the education in that. So as I've been listening to the "Greetings!" album, I keep thinking about that day of discovery and I still marvel at how amazing that entire album sounds. Whoever mixed and engineered that LP, my everlasting appreciation goes out because that is one the best albums I've ever listened to.
