Originally Posted by
huntergettingcaptured
This thread pretty much is all about a realization I've had over the years: the more years that pass, the fewer "important" Motown artists are remembered, at least here in the U.S. In the late 70's, when I was a kid collecting Motown, the names "The Temptations," "The Supremes," "Four Tops," "Stevie Wonder," "Mary Wells," "The Marvelettes," "Martha & The Vandellas," "Marvin Gaye," "Smokey Robinson & The Miracles," "Jr. Walker & The All-Stars" still carried some weight. You could say any of those names and it would register with music fans. To me, "Martha & The Vandellas" were just as big of a name as "The Supremes."
Gradually, I started noticing that fewer and fewer people recalled Mary Wells and she wasn't listed among the Motown Greats as often as she had been. I thought that was odd I thought, because I felt she was such a star even if only for "My Guy." Then, as the years went by, when anyone wrote about Motown, the number of names got smaller until it was boiled down to Diana Ross & The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson [[but not The Miracles), Marvin Gaye and The Temptations.
I always got bugged that so many others have faded in recognition in the U.S. To some extent, I guess it surprised me to find that Martha & The Vandellas too don't get nearly as much recognition. To me, it was a given that Martha Reeves was as much as star as Diana Ross, but just in a different way, as much as Aretha Franklin and Patti Labelle were big stars in different ways.
I wish that wasn't the case, but I think it's mainly a case that in general, we don't really respect our musical past here in the U.S. With that, we just sort of discard these heroes that made all of these amazing hits. I'm fortunate though to live in Chicago where we have a radio station, MeTV FM that is actually playing this music again BUT the amazing part is, they try to play things that have been ignored for years. They play Martha Reeves & The Vandellas and in a pretty healthy rotation. It blew my mind when they even played The Velvelettes' "He Was Really Sayin' Something."
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