Decent piece if nothing new from the BBC.
Unlike a radio show I tuned in to over the weekend asking people to pick their favourite Motown track.
Three Degrees and Bill Withers got a mention and one of the'presenters' [[idiots moe like) thought that The Osmonds had a Motown track..
This on the BBC..disgraceful.
So many people consider Motown a genre rather than a trademarked sound. I suppose it's good and bad in some respects, but to true music aficionados, Motown is the company many of us know that was created by Berry Gordy and associates in Detroit featuring the artists we all know who recorded on his various labels...
Not what ya meant snake but not bad eh?
General public understandable.
But an organisation like the BBC.....why do they allow this nonsense?
If they intend to acknowledge Motown's 60th, then get some expert researcher.
Would they do a show claiming David Bowie was a former member of The Rolling Stones or Queen were American?
If they did a show on Frank Sinatra they would get respected reviewers to do it properly.
Point taken, however, The Rolling Stones are a band and Motown has emerged as something bigger than a record label and is widely recognized as an entire "genre" and true, non Motownfiles sometimes consider many 60's style "soul" music to be "Motown", which anyone worth their salt at Soulful Detroit would certainly clarify, it's a very common misuse of the true Motown history...and perhaps a new term..."Motownish" would clarify the term to more adequately describe smooth, sophisticated Black music from that era... I don't recall that designation given to Memphis type deep soul music...only the more sophisticated and more highly arranged music. It's like when my girlfriend asks me to turn on "Sinatra" [[the Serius XM Sinatra station), it's not just Sinatra, but could be Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Matt Munro, etc on the Sinatra station, because like Motown..."Sinatra" is in addition to Frank, also becoming a recognized genre as well...
^^^That may be true, but I don't have to like it.
They used to call Aretha a Motown legend all the time despite her never ever having recorded there.
Nat King Cole started it all for Motown and The Drifters were their first major group. The first white artist was Teena Marie. Harold Melvin and The Bluenotes were big in the 70s.
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