Very rare Motown pictures

[mowsville]

Hi all...ive just seen some proof sheet photos on ebay of some extremely rare Motown artists from the 60s...there are pics of The Dalton Boys...Rick Robin and Him....The Mynah Birds and others...i wish i knew how to put them on here but i dont....go have a look.

[MIKEW-UK]

What a treasure trove of rare pictures! Even more valuable in that they depict some of the artists who didn’ t always get the recognition they deserved.......for example The Originals, Chuck Jackson, Shorty Long. Nice to see the pictures of Dave Godin visiting Motown. Dave was a gentle yet towering force in his passionate promotion of Motown and of soul music in the UK.

Thanks so so much mowsville for bringing them to our attention

[phil]

Here's the link to the seller's catalog : https://www.ebay.com/str/peoples-rec...p2047675.l2563

Many rare pictures, I've never seen this one from the Monitors :

[marv2]

Here's the link to the seller's catalog : https://www.ebay.com/str/peoples-rec...p2047675.l2563

Many rare pictures, I've never seen this one from the Monitors :

Wow look at Richard's hair. Is that Warren Harris in the lower right corner?

[Mark Desjardines]

Mowsville, thanks for the heads up on these very rare photos of Tamla/Motown recording artists. I "grabbed" this image and shared with Louvain Demps.

[marv2]

Here's one of Mary Wilson, Marvin Gaye etc., with the Four Tops onstage at the Roostertail in Detroit:

[motownjohnny]

Lots of interesting and rare photos so thanks for bringing these to our attention mowsville.

The seller is the owner of "Peoples Records" in Detroit [[currently at the corner of Woodward and Alexandrine, I believe) so not far away from where the Donovan Building used to stand and I suspect that's the original source of most of these photos.

As we know, when Motown re-located to L.A. in '72 lots of paperwork, artefacts etc were left behind and lay untouched for years and I guess these proof photo sheets too were left behind only to be looted around the time when the building was demolished. Now many of these items are gradually finding their way on to E-Bay where they often command premium prices.

However, I wonder if there isn't a legal issue here. On the back of each photograph is clearly stamped "Motown Record Corporation - All Rights Reserved", so I guess they are still the legal owners of these and their permission to dispose of these would be required by the seller. In other words they may still remain the property of Motown and possibly the artists in the photos as no doubt Motown charged them back with the cost of the photographers fees. I obviously don't know if this was done or not, but I feel it would have been a more fitting tribute to the City of Detroit, if these had been offered by "Peoples Records" as a gift to the Motown Museum for public display at Hitsville and the enjoyment of visitors to the Museum. By so doing these minor artists would belatedly have had some long overdue recognition in the company building they helped to grow and make famous.

[DWSheffer]

I've purchased some of these photos from "People's Records" over the years. I don't believe the copyright stamp on the photos has any bearing on collectors owning them today. I own many with the backstamp on them. Since these are original prints being sold collector to collector, there is no infringement of the copyright taking place. IF "People's" was making reprints and selling them, then there would be a copyright violation happening. People pulling the images from Ebay and re-posting on the internet is probably more of a violation of the copyright laws, but I'm not a lawyer, lol. It is without a doubt though that Motown is still the copyright holder of all of the images listed. If someone purchases these images to use in a book or some other sort of publication, they would need to obtain permission to use them. On a side note, I too believe these were pilfered from the Donovan building, and while in that sense they DID still belong to Motown, that would be next to impossible to prove today.

The owner of "Peoples Records" does have a museum of Detroit music and when I asked him once about where he acquired Motown memorabilia that he was selling I was informed that much of this was supposed to go into his museum for display. [[obviously I was not told where it came from!) I can't help but think though that when cash flow is needed, a pile of these photos goes up for sale as he knows they always sell well. I have about 20 photos in my watch currently. It's going to be hard to choose which ones I want to seriously go after, as I can't bid on them all.

I wholeheartedly agree though that the Motown Museum would have been the best place for this collection to go, but unfortunately that didn't happen.
Darin

[mowsville]

some of the pictures would have fit very nicely in The Complete Motown Singles Collection set...i have been collecting Motown for 40yrs now and it still amazes me that some 40yrs later im still finding pictures of groups that i had no idea what they looked like..for example Rick,Robin and Him...and i had only seen a very grainy pic of The Dalton Boys...i absolutely love finding things like this.

[marv2]

Lots of interesting and rare photos so thanks for bringing these to our attention mowsville.

The seller is the owner of "Peoples Records" in Detroit [[currently at the corner of Woodward and Alexandrine, I believe) so not far away from where the Donovan Building used to stand and I suspect that's the original source of most of these photos.

As we know, when Motown re-located to L.A. in '72 lots of paperwork, artefacts etc were left behind and lay untouched for years and I guess these proof photo sheets too were left behind only to be looted around the time when the building was demolished. Now many of these items are gradually finding their way on to E-Bay where they often command premium prices.

However, I wonder if there isn't a legal issue here. On the back of each photograph is clearly stamped "Motown Record Corporation - All Rights Reserved", so I guess they are still the legal owners of these and their permission to dispose of these would be required by the seller. In other words they may still remain the property of Motown and possibly the artists in the photos as no doubt Motown charged them back with the cost of the photographers fees. I obviously don't know if this was done or not, but I feel it would have been a more fitting tribute to the City of Detroit, if these had been offered by "Peoples Records" as a gift to the Motown Museum for public display at Hitsville and the enjoyment of visitors to the Museum. By so doing these minor artists would belatedly have had some long overdue recognition in the company building they helped to grow and make famous.

I think they were just in the garbage, in the debri of the demolished building and someone picked them out. There were stories at the time of people scavenging through the debri.

[Graham Jarvis]

It's been a while but thought you might be interested.