Motown was a house built on the labor of Women. Particularly Black Women There’s no way to really debate this. It started with the labor of understanding music, publicity, marketing and legal concerns Berry Gordy picked up from his sisters, Anna, Gwen, Esther and Loucye. It continued with the financial success that women like Mary…
Tag: Tammi Terrell
Popcorn & Poetry: The Forgotten Perfection of Luther Dixon
There’s so many people that crafted and created the legacy of mid 20th Century music that, basically, I keep sustaining my ability to write and pull together such a wealth of material to share with you year after year. It’s one of the joys that I give myself, educating myself even further and then sharing…
Everybody Sings Smokey: Motown’s Poet Laureate 50 times Over
It wouldn’t be Motown’s 60th Anniversary without visiting their premiere singer, songwriter and producer. As legend goes, Smokey Robinson met Berry Gordy with a notebook of songs, of which maybe one or two Gordy considered viable, yet he was impressed with the teenager’s moxie. So goes the template of who Gordy accepted into the fold,…
Your Soul & Inspiration: A 90 Minute Meditation To Keep Your Head Up To
Can you believe it’s 2019? I can’t! The tides of time seem to shift and be stuck all at once, and we find ourselves with nearly a decade slipped into the rearview mirror as we launch headlong into a future. What can we count on? What can we trust? I always find grounding in music,…
For The Venus Retrograde Part II: 36 Faces To Do Love’s Review To
It’s been awhile since we’ve had a Venus Retrograde, and it’s been a long long time since I’ve written extensively at looking at Astrology through music. However, this potent Season of the Witch in which we’ll be dealing with Venus in Scorpio retracing steps back to Venus in Libra, it seemed high time to pull…
Under The Covers: 33 Outsourced Covers From The Golden Age of Motown
Berry Gordy was slightly notorious for being adverse to seeking outside material for hit songs for his singers. Very rare during the Motown classic hit era were any of the major hits for artists from the pens of someone that wasn’t attached to the Motown Family. I can only think of two off the top…
What’s New for ’62? Forty Femme Gems For Cosmopolitan Consumption
In terms of Pop Culture, 1962 is an interesting year. In a lot of ways, it’s the first full fledged year of “The Sixties” as we currently conceptualize it. Out were tailfins on cars, up were beehives. Lucille Ball returned to television minus Desi Arnaz. And, as a little nugget, two Aries superstars battled it…
Forgotten Pearls, Unpanned Gold: Even More Motown Lady Tunes
They say Atlantic Records was The House That Ruth (Brown) Built. We never ever really give credit to the women who built an empire for Berry Gordy in the conjoined houses at 2648 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit. He Started with the business savvy of his sisters Anna, Gwen, Loucye and Esther. Early signings like Claudette…
Heaven Must Have Sent You: Your Holland-Dozier-Holland History Lesson
I’ve been prone to these songwriter series playlists moreso. This time we make a visit to our first team. While Burt Bacharach’s mix featured him not exclusively tethered to Hal David, and Sylvia Moy found herself working with a round robin of partners, this one solely focuses on Holland-Dozier-Holland. Brothers Eddie and Brian Holland and…
With This Song, I Be Wed: 30 Songs On The Pains and Pleasure of The Wedding Day
Marriage is a particularly curious item in American society. The combinations of romanticism, pragmatism and patriarchy inform an ever shifting social condition. As long as there’s been the concept of a popular song, anyone that got a chance to record more than 10 songs somehow deals with the concept in some circular way. As we…
