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The Stevie of the '70s I worked with was the hardest working songwriter and producer I've ever seen. Those songs are the best of many hundreds of songs he wrote. I suspect he simply wanted a life.

What happened at Motown was that Holland and Dozier liked to record backgrounds last in order to fill in any gaps in energy. Bringing the artists in twice was considered too expensive when you...

Both Jordan and Fitzgearld had sung in Cab Calloway's band. This was Fitzgearld's early career as a pop superstar prior to her jazz career in the 1950s. Music history got rewritten during the 1950s....

Ella Fitzgearld and Louis Jordan!

FWIW, I can't remember seeing anybody ever reusing a backing track at Motown. What I did see was recordings made during the same session sounding very similar.

Several people told me that Mike Valvano and Ivy Hunter are who actually created what we now think of as "the Motown Sound."

I understood Mike [[Valvano) and the Modifiers was the first white artist at Motown.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/mike-valvano-mn0000387468?428f545c512a210dbebe3019c81e4bb1

The reason for fades was that the recording level of a 45 drops like a rock after three minutes.

I don't remember separately.

My understanding from what I've read is that has reversed since then.

It's still mostly people in cars. I was surprised too.

Radio still constitutes the majority of music listening.

New title sales went in the toilet during the '90s and never came back.

I blame it on the end of independent labels, radio stations and local venues. Where artists got great was on stage. They...

Levi absolutely LOVED singing harmony with the rest of the group. I suspect he only put up with what I heard him call "that screamin' sh!t" because of its commercial necessity.

Levi and Gladys...

It wasn't just R&B, they were geniuses at top-40 radio.

It's just rock was breaking on FM and in completely different live venues from the world both Berry Gordy and Harry Balk had come from....

Around 1980 I went to work for the group Quicksilver Messenger Service. One of the things I learned was that the whole rock venue, FM radio scene was controlled by a small group of publicists. I...

Shaun posted on Facebook that he had moved to Nashville and the two of them had been planning on doing an album.

I'd forgotten about this! I'll be glad to answer any questions.

True. I don't think Dean had a clue about how to go about that. Most artists in his genre already had a band before they got signed and they had gotten signed because of their draw.

I was told the main reason for multiple labels was so that distribution could be divided in each city. Back then, record stores wouldn't pay their bills until they needed another hit from the same...

I worked a lot with Dean including the Rustix album. He was the first person at Motown to build a record one instrument at a time mostly played by himself. It was uncharted territory. I remember...

I didn't have any idea of how it worked until I did work for other labels. Doing that taught me what questions to ask. It's also important to understand that Motown began in 1959 when indi,...

People to love blame failure on record companies but the truth is that it's complicated. "Promotion" consisted of aligning live appearances, being displayed in record stores and radio play in a given...

OMG, who are the BG singers/choir?

I can't remember anyone playing to a metronome or "click" other than R. Dean Taylor who was overdubbing everything himself. Stevie laid down a keyboard followed by his drums with no metronome....