Popular Myths the General Public Believes About Motown

[jobucats]

This thread comes about as a result of reading how some people, including many Motown fans, believe certain myths out there regarding Motown.

Recently, thanks to Snakepit, the myth was squashed that Bob Dylan said that Smokey Robinson was the greatest poet of our times...something that Al Abrams pushed to the media.

Are there other myths that are 'out in the universe' regarding Motown.

Offhand, there are still folks out there who believe that Diana Ross, from the Motown camp, discovered the Jackson Five. I still understand that some give that credit to Bobby Taylor who arranged for the boys to audition for Motown; and some claim it was Gladys Knight who stated she called Motown about them after seeing them; but was it her phone call that got Motown interested in auditioning them?

Another myth [[and one that practically Motown fan knows to be untrue) that the general public believes: If a recording was credited to a group, for example, the Marvelettes, it WAS the Marvelettes themselves singing and nobody else. Of course, most of us know of the famous Andantes, for example, who seems to have provided more background vocals for many of the girl groups rather than the group members themselves. However, the general public, in my opinion, doesn't know that. And we know that there were lots of other background singer ensembles at Motown. It's funny, I recall, as a child how amazed I was that the Obie, Lawrence, and Duke of the Four Tops could sound like female singers on those early recordings. LOL

Any other myths?