When You Think "Motown", Do You Think "Lionel Richie"?

[Philles/Motown Gary]

I TOTALLY get that and think it's fantastic that you and others continued thinking in terms of linking artists with Motown well past the 60's. Are you both located in the U.K.? [[I always feel like I'm blowing that- U.K./England, even though it's been very well explained before!)

I probably should have qualified those comments by applying them in general to people in the U.S.

I think the U.K. has always been much stronger in having that devotion to Motown than people in the States. Just from my own experience with my friends, none of them automatically link anyone to any kind of a label. Nobody here says that's a Motown artist or that's an Arista artist, or that's an Epic artist. When Lionel was really hot, I never heard any of the people around me speak of him in terms of being a Motown artist.

But then again, nobody else around here was as diehard a fan of Motown as I was.

I'm in the U.S., WaitingWatching. I have to agree that Americans in general are at times fickle when it comes to recording artists, but not America's true Motown fans. When it comes to Motown, we're a faithful and loyal bunch. In fact, some of us are Motown completists who proudly own nearly every note of music Motown ever recorded -- both released and previously-unreleased. We owe it all to the magic of Motown's incredible '60s "Motown Sound". We were hooked early and it stuck with us until Berry sold Motown in 1988. After that, the only current-day Motown product I bought at the time was Diana and Stevie.

The reason some people don't mention Epic or Arista artists is because those were merely record labels that released all genres of music. Motown, however, was a "sound" -- a category unto its own which, during its 10-year heyday, took the world by storm and never stopped. Today, 60 years later, it has even spread to Broadway! Who would have ever guessed!