Looking absolutely pathetic, disgusting and vile. Tons of useless non Motown related people and too few of the actual groups with the surviving members. Looking like we're screwed again as always.
I think it might be interesting. They've got a few of the Golden Age veterans...I don't even want to think how many of them are gone. I think I'll check this out.
The massive Gordy family on Facebook is definitely behind this
Of course the Gordy family would be behind it. This is their legacy, but they'll back anything honoring Motown whether its good or not. This special is geared toward the average viewer, not the dedicated Motown fan. I'm not expecting a Motown 25 or Motown 40.
It's odd. There has been no word or mention of the Motown documentary yet. When this special taped back in February word was the Motown documentary was going to air on Showtime in April, yet here we are entering the last full week of April and not a word has been spoken. In fact, this whole Motown 60 celebration so far has been a huge let down. The Grammy Awards Motown tribute was a joke. I doubt I'll be enthralled with this Motown 60 Grammys special. I'm hoping the documentary will be good [[whenever that airs), but that'll have a Gordy slant to it. After that, what else is there since clearly Universal doesn't give a damn nor clear to do anything in terms of music? Their "Motown Did It First" campaign is nothing but Instagram stories, but where's the music?
I said it before and I'll say it again...Motown 60, like Motown 50, is going to be a huge wet fart.
I watched a trailer for Motown 60. Honestly, if it hadn't had Motown in the title, I wouldn't have had a clue this was about my favourite record label. It left me cold.
This makes me wonder why Lionel Richie dropped out of doing this show at the last minute.
So far in every trailer I've seen, there's been no mention of Martha. I've heard she was there and sang "Nowhere". Bets on if she's cut?
I have a feeling it is going to be "Dullsville" and not "Hitsville" LOL!!!
Never mind all those non Motown people give us the real thing! Blinky Williams, Chris Clark, Martha Reeves, Brenda Holloway, Kim Weston, Carolyn Crawford, Chuck Jackson, Thelma Houston, Louvain Demps, Jackie Hicks, Valerie Simpson, Velvelettes, Gladys Knight & The Pips, Katherine Anderson, Wanda Rogers, Ann Bogan, Juanita Cowart, Jean Terrell, Cindy Birdsong, Mary Wilson, Lynda Laurence, Scherrie Payne, Susaye Greene, Otis Williams, Abdul "Duke" Fakir, Mabel John, Claudette Robinson, G. C. Cameron, Kay & Helen Lewis, HDH, Jack Ashford, Joe Messina, Ivy Jo Hunter, Pam Sawyer, Gloria Jones, Joe Messina and anyone whose name I have not mentioned who is still on this earth from the good old days of classic Motown! It does not matter if they can perform or not and BG should pay for them to be there. They have earned their moment in Motown history.
Our dear Dr. Martha Reeves has been cut from the show after rehearsing for 2 days. Now thats not right imo and im real disappointed.
https://amp.freep.com/amp/3510335002
Thelma Houstons real excited about all the young folks performing on Motown 60!
https://www.wvlt.tv/video?vid=508816552
He came down with a bad stomachache bug when he found out Mary and all the living Vandellas, Annette Helton, Rosalind Ashford, Betty Kelly, Lois Reeves, Billy GriffiN, The Commodores, El DeBarge and got real sick when he found out Lynda Lawrence wasnt invited. Hes much better now though and going to watch the show tonight.
I notice there are explanations about choices they made
No Temptations and Four Tops because that’s original line ups are gone
Diana Ross wasn’t supposed to sing to Berry in the crowd but they left it because it was special
I’m sorry if Martha hot eliminated; I’m fearful for what the reason was but at least she was there and got to perform
The explanation as to why Duke and Otis weren’t included because the “original lineups are gone” is pure bull. So instead of using them the Grammys choose artists who have no association with Motown whatsoever. They could have used the guys somehow. Both groups are still touring.
This isn’t the first time they’ve cut Martha. Her segment was cut from Motown 45 too.
I know they wanted a broad appeal to include modern artists, but from what I’ve heard many of Motown alumni were not pleased not to get any recognition.
Last edited by bradsupremes; 04-21-2019 at 06:55 PM.
Martha is listed as a performer on my channel guide.
I hope they leave a moment of Martha in; likely she doesn’t sound like the Martha of old; likewise if they could find a moment with Duke and Otis - but I’m sure they have their economic reasons
I wonder if they pay the performers??
Here comes a night of pure trash. Motown is literally dead.
Last edited by marv2; 04-21-2019 at 10:58 PM.
This entire affair is quite sad. I suppose I should not be surprised. The Grammy's are very much a representation of the current music industry, which I would say is very much going down the drain. Therefore keeping that in mind, it only makes sense that this TV special would be equally disappointing. I can understand that they want to draw in a younger crowd by including some current artists, but it seems that the ratio of current artists to Motown legends is extremely disproportionate. The list of artists leaves me scratching my head. I didn't think Ciara was still relevant? They could have chopped her out and at least put together a five minute medley featuring the legends they purposely left out. That's at the very least.
I told a baby boomer about this special and how so many living legends were purposely excluded. I named a bunch of the Motown legends who were absent from this show. They were shocked and disappointed. How can you be "remembering Motown" and excluding those who made Motown, at the same time? So very disrespectful and sad.
Thelma Houston's performance was perfect in every way! Thank God for her.
I'm too afraid that if I watch, I'll end up cursing at the TV screen, so I'm watching reruns of Gilligan's Island instead. Not even joking there. At least I know what I'm getting with that show.
Diana's performance was dazzling and the loving moments between her and BG were so sweet! She was in fine voice. Time to release another jazz album! Loved that Mary got lots of airtime as well during the Supremes and Motown history segments. She looks beautiful. Smokey sounded wonderful as well during his performances. I also liked Ne-Yo.
I agree. Aside from the obvious criticisms, I thought the special was very entertaining. For me, Diana's performance was the moment of the night but Smokey and Stevie also turned in good ones as well. And it was also nice to see an IN MEMORIAM segment devoted to some of the Motowners no longer with us.
I was expecting to hate this special and it was actually a lot better than I thought it would be. They cut down a lot of the performances by the younger artists and edited them down. Some weren't on the special at all, like Little Big Town, who I actually like. They did indeed cut Martha out, which is too bad. She has a sharp memory when it comes to Motown's history, so they could have maybe made up for her cut performance by including a segment with Mary and Martha reminiscing about the early days and the Motown tours. I liked the in memoriam but they forgot to include a lot of our Motown legends. The songwriters segment was nice. All around pretty good but it could have been better. The audience sing along segments were unnecessary.
Ok, it's over now. My review? YAWN!!!!!!
Regarding the Memoriam segment, the Marvelettes still can't get no respect from the company they helped build! Not even a mention of Gladys Horton or Georgeanna Tillman. I don't even recall seeing a photo of Beans Bowles, Cholly Atkins, Maxine Powell or Maurice King! ZERO mention of Gladys Knight and the Pips or the Elgins. They didn't even honor Berry Gordy's parents, his sisters or his brothers who all had a hand in building Motown. No Miss Ray at all! They can bite me over that one!
Carlo, now you know I did. She looked spectacular, but overall I was highly disappointed in this show. There was not nostalgic energy even. It was like, let's just get this over. Too many people were ignored or just plain forgetten. Did they mention the Andantes? I saw the Funk Brothers tribute in the Memoriam segment, but they did not include Marlene Barrow-Tate at all.
Last edited by marv2; 04-21-2019 at 10:24 PM.
Wow, thought it was tacky to have them stand if" you were involved with Motown" with no closeups or verbal acknowledgement. Heck, Scherrie Payne didn't even get her name shown. Neither did Janie Bradford.Disrespect, they should have called them by name and asked them to stand or better yet have them come to the stage and introduce them. I thought it was disrespectful to those living Motown legends in the audience. Still, it was better than what I expected but nowhere near how great it could have been. I didn't mind some of the performers covering classic songs, but just rerunning JLo's Grammy performance was not a good idea and I hate to say Fantasia was awful covering Mary Wells' My Guy-I did not like that at all.
Yeah they had the nerve to re-air that ghastly JLO Motown segment, but ignored about 85% of the "Motown Family". I noticed that there was NO reaction when Michael Jackson's photo was shown. I was surprised they showed one of Florence because they never mention her in any of these "specials".
I went into this thinking I'd hate it. I don't know if I loved it, but watching Diana serenade Berry was a highlight.
My critiques would be they should have had all the living Motown stars sitting together in the front row, and was it just me, or was the segment when they showed Supremes clips the same exact footage from Motown 25?
I’m just getting home after being out all day, so I haven’t been able to tune in! I take it I didn’t miss much.
It was the same footage from Motown 25. They also re-used the idea of having the songwriters sitting around reminicing like on M25. It was criminal how they completely ignored Michael Jackson's contributions to Motown other than that guy singing "I'll Be There". They never even mentioned him by name.
At first, I didn't like it, but I think it was aimed at the Millennials [[ I know some 29 year
olds who NEVER heard of Martha and the Vandellas). They only showcased the very big
near universal names they felt most people would know. I thought they covered Smokey
and Stevie well and I liked the special tribute to Berry Gordy with Diana singing [[ after all the man is 89 years old. I think people should get flowers [[and tributes) while they can still smell and hear them. If you notice, the non-Motown people were current stars with
current shows on TV, Legend, JLO [[The Voice) and Cedric [[The Neighborhood), I did like
the songwriters segment and was surprised they had Mickey there and Holland/Dozier.
This show was not aimed at the Baby Boomer Motown Fanatic Northern Soul demographic. It was ok but very watered down in my book.
I was shocked they left Gladys Horton out of the In Memoriam.
Wow. Is all I can say. DIANA Ross nailed her performance. She was magnificent!
I agree with pretty much all of the comments above. I had been looking forward to Motown 60 since they started advertising it, although not really sure of what to expect. The first half hour of the show found me questioning, "Why am I even watching this?" So many strangers performing who had me wondering if they were current-day Motown artists or what [[who cares?), especially when there are SO MANY classic '60s Motown artists who are still living and should have been included but were totally ignored. [[An exception was John Legend. What a classy guy he is! And he did great justice to Marvin's '70s music.) I would have loved to have seen Mary perform a song. Seeing her sitting in the audience, surely yearning to be up on stage with her fellow Motowners, struck me as both strange and sad. On a brighter note, Smokey, Stevie, and Thelma were right on. [[I swear, Smokey and Diana have a contest going to see who can look the youngest! I've gotta say, it's a tie!) As I knew it would be, the highlight of the show for me was Diana who looked and sounded like a million bucks! Her singing "My Man" to Berry was so touching, it brought tears to my eyes, especially the way Berry looked so proud and touched by Diana's sentiment.
Very emotional for Smokey singing his songs; decent recognition for many while still trying to attract young viewers and Berry looked awesome; my wife says Diana still has the voice; Diana said that was a song that was hard to sing 40 years ago
Martha Reeves and Otis Williams sitting in the audience like a cockroach? Completely a show from hell. Diana doing her usual sucky crossover crap. No Duke. Thanks for NOTHING GORDY. I'm not kissing his ass like that sellout Diana.
Did the Velvelettes get a mention?
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