Motown

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Motown
1960s early 1970s

• Detroit, Michigan Motor City
• Ford Assembly Line
• Brings African American
• workers to Detroit for work,
• opportunity, and
• non-segregation
• African Americans brought
• with them their music (Dixieland and Jazz!)

Detroit
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Civil Rights Movement
1955 1968 Attempt to abolish racial segregation
in America.

• Brown vs. Board of Education
• 1954 Topeka, Kansas
• Separate but equal is inherently unequal.
• Rosa Parks
• 1955-1956 Montgomery, Alabama
• Refused to give up her bus seat to a white man
  and was arrested.
• Led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott
• Martin Luther King Jr.
• 1963 I Have A Dream speech
• More public awareness of the Civil Rights Movement

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Motown Music Groups

• Marvin Gaye
• The Marvelettes
• Smokey Robinson The Miracles
• Stevie Wonder
• The Jackson 5
• The Temptations
• The Supremes
• Dreamgirls movie based on the story of the
  Supremes!

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The Marvelettes

• Began in 1961 as quintet
• called Casinyets (Cant
• Sing Yet) out of Inkster,
• Michigan.
• Came in fourth place in a
• school variety show and were then allowed to
  audition for Motown Records. They were offered a
  deal right away.
• Gordy Berry renamed them the Marvelettes.
• Please Mr. Postman became a 1 Billboard hit 14
  weeks after its release.

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Motown The Beginning

• Berry Gordy- (Born 1929 in Detroit, Michigan) a.
  Dropped out of high school to become a boxer b.
  1951-Drafted by the Army for the Korean War,
  earned his high school degree c.
  Returned home in 1953, opened a jazz record
  store d. Then worked on an assembly line-writing
  songs as he worked
• Berry Gordy-The Beginnings of Success
• a. Submitted songs to magazines, singers,
  contests b. Co-wrote Reet Petite which was
  recorded by Jackie Wilson in 1957 c. Began
  producing and recording his own artists the Five
  Stars, the Miracles (with Smokey
  Robinson) d. 1959- Establishes Tamla Records
  which became Motown Records

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Motowns Role in Racial Integration of Popular
Music

• First record label to be owned by an African
  American
• b. First to feature mostly African American
  artists who gained crossover success

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The Motown Sound

• The Motown Sound of the 1960sa. A style of soul
  music, stemming from sacred Gospel musicb. Use
  of tambourine along with drumsc.
  Prominent/melodic bass line played by electric
  bassd. Call and Response singing style
  originating from Gospel musice. Orchestration
  with strings and horns

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• The Temptations
• My Girl- First hit in 1964
• Signed to the Motown label for over 40 years
• Sold over 22 million albums by 1982
• Always feature 5 African American
  vocalist/dancers
• Recognizable for their
• choreography and stage suits
• Said to be as influential to
• soul as the Beatles were to rock.
• The "Classic Five" lineup of the Temptations,
  circa 1965. Left to right Melvin Franklin, Eddie
  Kendricks, Otis Williams, Paul Williams, and
  David Ruffin.