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2001-03-18 - 16:18:10

I've been listening to a pretty steady diet of this collection called "Hitsville USA: The Singles, 1959-70". For those of you who don't know, Hitsville USA is the other name for the record corporation known as Motown. This music in this collection came out of a studio that was in the middle of a converted house in a residential suburb of Detroit (much like Scarborough, for those Scarlemites reading this).

As I keep listening, certain things have kept rearing their heads in my mind. First of all, I don't think people my age realize that when these groups recorded these songs, they were our age(19-25). That means that the Temptations, Four Tops, Supremes, Marvin Gaye....they were virtually all in their late teens to early 20's...and already at this age they were laying down the foundation of one the greatest musical legacies of American history...

Another thing....all these people belonged to one corporation, at one incredible moment in time...it's a talent pool that has yet to be seen again at a record company...I mean, what are record companies now, anyway? Industry hit men in Italian suits exchanging figures on the golf course and drinking their martinis dry...(off-topic rant...sorry)

Can you imagine going to one of those Motown house parties?? You walk in the door, and there's Stevie Wonder standing on the stairs, jamming with drumsticks on the floor, yammering away to Benny Benjamin, the revolutionary house-band drummer...walk in the living room, and there's Marvin Gaye surrounded by people at the piano, singing old gospel songs and trading off stories of the chitlin' circuit. Diana Ross sits alone in a corner, smoking her cigarette, looking distant, icy....while Flo Ballard has everyone in the kitchen howling with her stories, and her ability to drink faster than the boys in the band.....

the sound of young america

you have been taken for granted for

so long

no one remembers that you were alive once

that you had a living breathing body

that you are not just some old song on some am radio station, crackling out your beat

that people made love to you, cried to you, sang to you, got married to you, died to you

the sound of young america

you have been taken for granted for so long

 

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