Motown

August 28: Marvin Gaye released “Let’s Get It On” in 1973

Posted on by Egil Mosbron

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]Post-Al Green What’s Going On, which means it’s about fucking rather than the human condition, thank the wholly holey. Gaye is still basically a singles artist, and the title track, as much a masterpiece as “Inner City Blues,” dominates in a way “I’m Still in Love with You,” say, doesn’t. Then again, it’s an even better song, and this album prolongs its seductive groove to an appropriate thirty minutes plus
~Robert Christgau (Consumer Guide Reviews)

On this album, Gaye meditated on the gap between sex and love and how to reconcile them – an adult version of the Motown tunes he had built his career on. It’s some of the most gorgeous music he ever made, resplendent with sweet strings and his clear-throated crooning.
~rollingstone.com[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Let’s Get It On:

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September 21: I Second that emotion by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles was recorded in 1967

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen

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“I Second That Emotion” is a 1967 song written by Smokey Robinson and Al Cleveland. First charting as a hit for Smokey Robinson and the Miracles on the Tamla/Motownlabel in 1967.

“I second that motion” is a common phrase heard at meetings in America where policy is being determined. It’s what Motown producer Al Cleveland meant to say when he was on a shopping trip with Smokey Robinson. As Robinson recalls in his 1989 autobiography, he and Cleveland went to a Detroit department store called Hudson’s to do Christmas shopping in December, 1967. Smokey’s wife, Claudette, had recently given birth to twins that didn’t survive the premature birth, and he was looking to get her a gift. At the jewelry counter, Smokey picked out some pearls and asked Robinson what he thought. “I second that emotion” was his reply, and later that afternoon the pair wrote a song around the misspoken phrase. Robinson and Cleveland produced the song, and it was released in October, 1968, entering the US Top 40 in December, about a year after it was written. The song was also a #1 R&B hit. (Songfacts)
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Dec 9: Meet The Supremes was released in 1962

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen

Meet the Supremes is the debut studio album by The Supremes, released in late 1962 on Motown. The LP includes the group’s earliest singles: “I Want a Guy”, “Buttered Popcorn”, “Your Heart Belongs to Me” and “Let Me Go the Right Way”. The earliest recordings on this album, done between fall 1960 and fall 1961, feature the Supremes as a quartet composed of teenagers Diane Ross, Mary Wilson, Florence Ballard, and Barbara Martin. Martin left the group in early 1962 to start a family, and the other three girls continued as a trio. Martin is not pictured on the album because of her departure earlier in the year; although her vocals are present on the majority of the recordings on the album (as well as other recordings made during that period), she never received any royalties from album sales. She does have a spoken interlude line (as do the other group members) on the bridge of the song “(He’s) Seventeen”, and also sings lead on “After All”, a song recorded for but not originally included on the album. Along with these songs, Ballard and Wilson are heard out front on other songs as well. Wilson sings lead on “The Tears” (another former non-album track) and “Baby Don’t Go”; Ballard has leads on a handful of songs as well (see below), including “Buttered Popcorn” and the short intro line to “Let Me Go the Right Way”.

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