Originally Posted by
WaitingWatchingLookingForAChance
Hi Splanky. Sorry, I had intended to come back to this much earlier today but instead got on a never-ending treadmill of dealing with the UPS searching for a missing package and now I'm at work. Weee!
The book is "The Drifters: The Rise and Fall of the Black Vocal Group" by Bill Millar. It came out in 1971. I stumbled upon it in a second hand shop some 30 years ago.
So much of what Mr. Millar writes about the group as well as the evolution of black music from doo wop to soul sheds light on so much of we hear on Motown records. Actually, it sheds light on so much of black music in general but my primary interest is always Motown.
Coming to Motown music in the mid-seventies, I think I tended to view Motown as a world unto itself, but the more you live [[and read) the more you learn. I remember a dj played the Isley Brothers' version of "There's No Love Left". I kept thinking, how cool the Four Tops are singing with the Isleys! Then, as if reading my mind, the dj remarked that the Isley Brothers were sounding like the Four Tops because the Tops' producers made 'em sound that way. They were Motownized! Identifiable harmonies were being sacrificed for more of a chorale sound.
Now I can see where this trend began and it was way before Motown started doing it.
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