I actually think The Wall of Sound as created by Phil Spector is one of the most overrated music trends of the 1960’s. Not only did it borrow heavily from trends already happening in the sophistication blend of 1960’s “Rock & Roll” and popular music, it relied very heavily on the aesthetics of the musicians, arrangers…
Tag: The Four Tops
Love-o-matic: Your Mid Century Auditory Personal Lubricant For Horizontal Dancing
Spring in the air, filled with love, there’s magic everywhere. Okay, we’re not all young and in love as Van McCoy wrote, but we all like to be amorous, and there’s no season like the blossoms of Spring, and Venus in Taurus season to get us to want to make like the birds and bees…
The Weight for ’68: 50 Tunes from The Tumultuous Year 50 previous
When one takes into account how ridiculous the past year has been, it’s hard to put into reference or frame of mind that the world has always been a bit bent out of shape. One of the preferred ways of coping is turning one’s stress about strife to the songs and singers that keep us…
Languishing On An LP: 33 Revolutions Not Found In Your Platter Pack
Vinyl DJs swear by the portability of the 45 rpm single. In a platter pack or any sundry 45 carrier, you’ve got up to 100 tunes, since most of those boxes can accommodate 50 of those little plastic discs. Most of my fellow DJs decry LPs, especially Soul LPs of the 1960’s as full of…
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…
Better Luck Next Time: 40 Hits that happened for someone else
Sometimes, it’s like, with a song, dust yourself off and try again. The perfect moment for a tune to become a success entrenched in the Pop Culture lexicon sometimes isn’t its first time up to bat. Sometimes it takes competition and revision to get things right. With this, I’ve gone a bit overboard, giving you…
Sylvia’s Work: Sister Soul Songwriter Standing In The Shadows of Motown 1964-1975
The music industry isn’t a kind place to women. Even now, there’s more hurdles that keep women mostly out of control of their artistic output rather than giving them the full creative reign of their male counterparts. The situation is more heightened for Women of Color, especially Black women. Often, and yet still, you are…
The Telephone Game: 30 Gabbing Soul Classics From The Land Before Text Messaging
What is a telephone in this modern world of 2017? Most of us use them as Cameras, Newspapers and Western Union Telegrams. What we rarely use them for at this stage of evolution is to actually directly talk to people. Rare it seems for people born after the Baby Boom to engage with the ritual…
Live! Live! Live! Soul From The Stage To Your Stereo 1963-71
We’re decidedly blessed with continuous access to acres of studio recordings of our favorite soul artists. There’s the hits we know, and then even there’s alternate takes. Nevermind the LPs they released, the B-sides that end up being true gems, or the unreleased material that sees light of day more than a half century later….
Man Crushes and Masturbatory Materials: 36 + Faces of Sixties Soul
I do realize when I pull together these mixes that aren’t themed around Astrology, CIS-gendered vintage men kinda get the short end of the stick. It comes from my place that in the terms of music history, women in general don’t get anywhere near the equal coverage in their monumental role in shaping our pop…
DJ Larsupreme 