Black Music Month 2011 | High Negro Style: The Motown Visual Effect

Motown’s impact on American music is well known, but the label was also significant for introducing to the world to “High Negro Style”

High Negro Style: The Motown Visual Effect

by Mark Anthony Neal

When Berry Gordy founded Motown records in January of 1959, his efforts were little more than a hunch and a hustle. At the time Gordy could not have imagined that his little Detroit-based record company would go on to produce some of the most timeless music of the 20th century. For all of the two-and-a-half minute classics that came off the label’s automobile-like assembly line, there is perhaps no more endearing tribute to Motown than the image of upscale sophistication that so many of the label’s artists embodied during the 1960s. Motown’s “High Negro Style” as former Motown President Andre Harrell would term it, is on full display on the recent release Motown the DVD: Definitive Performances.

Harrell took over the helm of Motown Records in 1995 when the label was well removed from its peak as one of the premier record companies in the country. Harrell was faced with the daunting, and ultimately unsuccessful, task of making the label relevant to an industry that had long passed it by. For many, the label had become strictly a back catalogue brand, most valuable for the potential of endlessly repackaging Motown’s many classic recordings and artists. Though the label boasted the talents of the platinum selling group Boyz II Men on its roster at the time—Harrell’s tenure with the label coincides with the beginning of the group’s descent from the top of the pop charts—the label’s most notable commodity was its tradition and that back catalogue.

To his credit, Harrell understood the value of that tradition and began to place his own stamp on the aging brand as an example of what he called “High Negro”—upscale, urban, urbane and just enough ghetto to remind you that the Detroit housing projects supplied Motown with more than enough talent in the early 1960s. “Ghetto glamour,” as Harrell described “High Negro” style in a 1995 cover story for New York Magazine,” would have been incomprehensible for those audiences who flocked to Motown performances in the 1960s. There’s no denying though, that just below the sheen of respectability and mainstream acceptance that Gordy craved, were the gritty realities of the social world that made his hustle palpable.

Motown the DVD opens with the music of Martha and the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Streets,”—a song which co-writer Marvin Gaye always felt had broader political implications in light of the Civil Rights Movement—amid footage of young white Americans on the beach and in their cars listening presumably to the “Sound of Young America” as Gordy often described the label’s sound.

In the 1960s as television had emerged as a particularly volatile site for representations of blackness, images of black civil rights workers clashing with southern segregationists often competed with images of uplift like Dianne Carroll’s Julia, a nattily dressed Nat King Cole and the athletic grace of Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. Gordy understood these dynamics better than most, so for many of those first generation of Motown acts, the label, was among other things, a finishing school. In addition to the intricately choreographed Cholly Atkins stage routines, there were etiquette classes. As critical as the rhythm tracks laid down by the Motown’s famed backing musician, The Funk Brothers were to Motown’s success in the 1960s, was making White people comfortable with the Black bodies that emboldened the brand was as critical to Motown’s success

Motown the DVD captures some of the tensions that accompanied Gordy’s attempts to conquer the pop music world. The Contours 1962 appearance on The Hy Lit Show is instructive. Singing “Do You Love Me?”—a song that would be prominently featured twenty-five years later in the film Dirty Dancing—the quartet seems particularly challenged not to engage in the very “dirty dancing” that the song inspired. Only a few years after Elvis Presley’s swiveling hips would court controversy on television, America was not quite ready to see black men doing the same. In comparison, the Temptations’ tightly choreographed routines during their 1964 performance of “My Girl” on Teen Town is a lesson in restraint. “My Girl” was the group’s first major pop hit, and Gordy was understandably cautious in his approach.

When the voluptuous Brenda Holloway appeared on Shivaree in 1964, it was the camera that seemed confused. The camera was still focused on the white Go-Go dancers that were featured weekly, while Holloway was well into the first verse of “Every Little Bit Hurts,” seemingly reluctant about presenting Holloway in her sleeveless leather cat suit. Even when the camera finally settles on Holloway’s figure, albeit briefly, it seems confused as to whether to present a head-shot or a full body view, Holloway’s rather ample hips in tow.

Many of the performances included on Motown the DVD, were lip-synced, highlighting many of the technical issues that producers were faced with when trying to present musical performances via the still evolving medium. Not all of the teen music programs in the era, for example, had production budgets that would allow them to feature live musicians and alternately, many of the fledgling records labels of the era couldn’t afford to hire musicians for one-time appearances. For Gordy such canned performances were useful, because they helped guarantee that the label’s artists would reproduce the very performances that record buyers were familiar with.

The performances of Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and The Supremes on The Ed Sullivan Show—the premiere weekly variety show throughout the 1950s and 1960s—and The Mike Douglass Show offer a contrast to the many of the lip-synced performances. Despite having a reputation for possessing a rather saccharine voice, Supremes lead Diana Ross more than makes up with her star power during the group’s performance of “Back in My Arms Again.” And none of made the Motown sound “pop” was lost when the Vandellas donned full-length gowns in front of Sullivan’s house orchestra.

Motown the DVD includes additional footage of the company picnic in 1970, that is as notable for the moments it captures the label’s biggest stars—Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye and a young Michael Jackson—alongside the rank-and-file types that were the essence of the operation as it is for the comical narration of then Motown staffer Weldon McDougal III. For all of the label’s achievements, the footage of the picnic is a reminder that above all else, Motown always saw itself as a family.

Always Supreme: Diana Ross

from the News & Observer

Always Supreme
by Mark Anthony Neal
Friday, March 11, 2011

Diana Ross was never the prettiest girl in the room. She was never the sexiest women on the screen. Ross was never the best singer on stage.

Yet for nearly 50 years, Diana Ross has been the epitome of American glamour and a role model for generations of R&B and pop divas trying to negotiate the pitfalls of celebrity and ever fickle audiences.

Ross brings her singular presence to a sold-out show at the Durham Performing Arts Center tonight.

Born Diane Ross in 1944, the singer grew up in the housing projects of Detroit. While still in high school, Ross joined a group called the Primettes (later renamed the Supremes) with Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson. The group was a sister group of the Primes, whose members would later become the legendary Temptations.

Ross' career was nurtured by Berry Gordy, founder of Motown Records, where the images of black racial uplift were as much required as the fine tunes that Smokey Robinson and Holland-Dozier-Holland produced in the 1960s. Gordy called his label the "Sound of Young America." The Supremes, with Diana Ross singing lead, was Motown's flagship product.

Ross' legacy as one of the most important vocalists of the era would have been cemented had her career ended with her last hit recording with the Supremes ("Someday We'll Be Together") in 1969 and the group's 12 No. 1 Billboard 100 songs. But Ross and Gordy had greater designs. Ross' solo career, which began with the signature hits "Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)" and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" (both written by Ashford and Simpson) set the standard for pop divas.

Ross set her sights on Hollywood, earning Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for the biopic "Lady Sings the Blues," and later starred in "Mahogany" and a film adaptation of the musical "The Wiz."

In 1980, with her recording career treading water, she collaborated with producers Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic to produce one of her greatest albums as a solo artist. Titled "Diana," the album produced hits including "I'm Coming Out," which became an anthem for gay and lesbian audiences.

Ross soon left Motown Records, signing with RCA, with one of the most lucrative contracts in the music industry at the time. She continued her success with a remake of Frankie Lymon's "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" and the song "Muscles," which was written by her close confidante, the late Michael Jackson.

One enduring image of Ross from that period was her performing in New York's Central Park in 1983 during a torrential rainstorm - the perfect representation of the old adage that the show must go on (though Ross did cut the show short, and returned to do a show the next day).

Over the past 20 years, Ross continued to record and tour, though her legacy is perhaps best represented by the success of her children. Daughter Tracee Ellis-Ross starred in the popular sitcom "Girlfriends" (2000-2008), and her son Evan, is earning rave reviews for his role in the film "Mooz-lum."

***

Mark Anthony Neal is a professor of black popular culture in the department of African and African-American Studies at Duke University.

Ashford and Simpson: The Soundtrack to Black Love

Just in time for Valentine's Day we recognize one of R&B's strongest pairs -- in life and in music.

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Ashford and Simpson: The Soundtrack to Black Love
by Mark Anthony Neal | TheLoop21

Some 40-plus years after its release, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell "Ain’t No Mountain High Enough" may be the most recognizable Soul duet ever recorded. It’s easy to think that the song’s timelessness has everything to do with the musical bond that Gaye and Terrell shared, in the studio and on stage, but in reality Terrell recorded her vocals for the songs months before Gaye did; The duo were not in the studio together for the recording of the song.

While Gaye and Terrell did find studio magic on tracks like “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing,” “You’re All I Need to Get By,” and “Your Precious Love,” the one constant on those recordings was the song-writing and production team of Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson. The duo was in their early twenties when Motown head Berry Gordy entrusted them with some of the label’s marquee acts, beginning a more than 40-year career where their songs have served as the soundtrack to Black love.

Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21

Rhythm and Protest: Motown’s Forgotten Revolution

Black Music Month 2010

Rhythm and Protest: Motown’s Forgotten Revolution

by Mark Anthony Neal

When Berry Gordy founded Motown Records 50 years ago, it was little more than an All-American hustle; Gordy was among the many who tapped into the burgeoning entertainment industries of the post-World War II period of which Rhythm and Blues music was a vital part. That Motown has become, arguably, the most well known Black brand of the 20^th century, it goes without saying that Motown’s success elicited great pride among African-Americans, who at the time of the label’s founding, were still struggling to gain full citizenship. Gordy himself was conscious of the larger meanings of having a successful black owned business, but he was also cognizant of the limits of using that success in support of a political agenda more in line with that emerging in the American South at the time in the form of the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Because Gordy was not more outspoken about the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, Motown has been, perhaps unfairly, depicted as marginal to the real struggles that took place.

Gordy was always clear that he was producing music, not simply for black audiences, but for American youth—he was after all simply selling records. But Motown was never simply about selling records—Motown’s primary product was a view of Black America as cool, sophisticated, glamorous and vital to a nation that desired to view itself the same way. In this regard, it is hard to decouple, say the image that Jacqueline Kennedy transmitted to the world, from the sounds and images that Motown transmitted to that same world. Berry’s commitment to the “struggle,” as it were, occurred on much lower frequency—Motown’s artist would always be representative of the best that Black America could offer for the world and in a society in which there were few “authentic” representations of black life and culture, Gordy’s efforts set a clear standard.

As scholar and critic Daphne Brooks describes it, Motown’s look was about “aaffirming black dignity and humanity amid the battle to end American apartheid.” More visibly, Gordy distributed the speeches of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Stokley Carmichael, among others, via Motown’s Black Forum imprint. Besides the fact that Motown was a vital part of Black Detroit’s economy, the aforementioned efforts amounted to the extent of Gordy’s political engagement and his politics and his music rarely mixed.

One clear example of Gordy’s desire to draw a line between politics and selling records is the oft-told story of his reluctance to release Marvin Gaye’s recording What’s Going On. But Gordy’s resistance of Gaye’s recording had less to do with the album’s political content, and more to do with the mogul’s belief that Gaye had achieved a level of crossover appeal—Gaye’s “I Heard It Through The Grapevine for example was Motown’s best-selling single, at the time—that Gordy felt would be compromised by a “protest recording.” And even more to the point for the ever-pragmatic Gordy, he didn’t feel there were any successful singles that could be mined from What’s Going On.

In reality though, in the years before the release of What’s Going On, Motown’s slowly began to reflect the political tenor of the times, particularly after the departure of the production team on Holland-Dozier-Holland in 1967 and the emergence of the late Norman Whitfield as the primary architect of the Motown soundscape. Whitfield’s production on Temptation’s classics such as “Cloud Nine,” and “Ball of Confusion,” (with Dennis Edwards installed as the new co-lead) and Edwin Starr’s “War” were as politically relevant as any of socially conscious music coming from the Stax and Atlantic labels or out of Haight-Ashbury (Sly and the Family Stone’s base). Even the choice of The Temptations to cover “Ol’ Man River,” given the song’s long association with radical black activist Paul Robeson, had distinct political connotations.

Indeed without the collaborative work of Whitfield and primary lyricist Barrett Strong and Gaye’s What Going On, there would have been little context for the politically sophisticated work produced by Stevie Wonder in the mid-1970s. And while both Gaye and Wonder struggled mightily with Gordy—then with designs on establishing Motown as a Hollywood brand—to gain the artistic freedom that marked their transitions from hit-makers to full-ledged artists, there is no denying Motown’s music offered a meaningful musical backdrop for hard-earned social gains witnessed by Black Americans in the late 1960s and 1970s.

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The 12-inch recording of Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” from the soundtrack of Spike Lee’s film Do the Right Thing was released on the Motown label in the summer of 1989. Arguably the track was the most incendiary political recording in the Motown catalogue at the time of its release. Motown’s release of “Fight the Power” occurred a year after Gordy has sold the label and Motown was very much in the business of establishing its legacy as a quintessential American brand. Nevertheless the label was still committed to releasing music that was relevant to young Black Americans. It was in this context that the label signed a then little known production collective from New Jersey known as Blaze. In the fall of 1990, Blaze released their only Motown recording, 25 Years Later.

In a period that was marked by renewed expressions of black pride and Afrocentric thought, 25 Years Later essentially recalibrated Motown’s relationship to the legacy of black struggle, by wedding the classic Motown sound with post-Civil Rights era black nationalism. 25 Years Later was released at a time when mainstream black popular culture was dominated by so-called conscious rap acts like the aforementioned Public Enemy, KRS-One (whose brilliant Edutainment was released the same year as 25 Years Later), the Five-Percent nations musings of Rakim (with Eric B), Brand Nubian, and Poor Righteous Teachers and the decidedly Womanist politics of Queen Latifah as well as the DIY cultural nationalism of black filmmakers like Spike Lee, Matty Rich, Julie Dash, Robert Townsend and Haile Gerima.

As such 25 Years Later was an earnest attempt to capture the full complexities of the moment by mixing snippets of melodramatic exchanges with inspirational music that covered the full gamut of black popular music. In many ways 25 Years Later was a precursor to a Web 2.0 phenomenon like R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet. Particularly remarkable about 25 Years Later, as political scientist Richard Iton notes in his recent book In Search of The Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era, is that it was recorded at time when R&B as a genre had retreated from political themes, allowing hip-hop to carry the water for a popular black political perspective.

Much of the dramatic action on 25 Years Later revolves around the fictional character Shaheed Muhammad, a post Civil Rights era Malcolm X figure (the title is in reference to Malcolm X's death), who is leader of the BPM (Black People’s Movement). Besides the standard exchanges with non-believers and confrontations with law enforcement officers (Shaheed is arrested at one point) the recording includes rather rich and poignant exchanges between Shaheed and his wife Felicia. In one pointed exchange Felicia challenges Shaheed to be a better father and provider for his family (the couple were parents to a toddler) stating: “I’m tired of you out on the street, all the time, calling yourself a so-called activist…Shaheed we have nothing, we have no money, we have nothing.” For a generation that had come to romanticize about political struggle, 25 Years Later offers an unglamorous view of the struggle and sacrifices that political activists often face, beyond the more obvious challenges. Given those dynamics, it’s not surprising that 25 Years Later concludes with the assassination of Shaheed Muhammad by members of the WPO (presumably the White People’s Organization). The final words on the recording are “Keep Hope Alive”—still relevant to African-American audiences, before it became more identified with the general caricaturing of Civil Rights Era veterans like the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who helped popularize the term. The final track on the recording is the largely instrumental “The Hope Song” which includes the utterances of Nelson Mandela, who notably was released from prison in 1990.

25 Years Later will not be remembered as the best that Motown’s legacy has to offer or even the best that Blaze, who have gone on to be stars of the underground House Music and Gospel House scene, had to offer. 25 Years Later is yet another reminder, though, of Motown’s historical role in providing the music and the cultural cover for Black American demands for social justice and equality.

Motown: 'High Negro Style'

High Negro Style: The Motown Effect
by Mark Anthony Neal

When Berry Gordy founded Motown records in January of 1959, his efforts were little more than a hunch and a hustle. At the time Gordy could not have imagined that his little Detroit-based record company would go on to produce some of the most timeless music of the 20th century. For all of the two-and-a-half minute classics that came off the label’s automobile-like assembly line, there is perhaps no more endearing tribute to Motown than the image of upscale sophistication that so many of the label’s artists embodied during the 1960s. Motown’s “High Negro Style” as one of its later heads would term it, is on full display on new the release Motown the DVD: Definitive Performances.

Andre Harrell took over the helm of Motown Records in 1995, when the label was well removed from its heyday as one of the premier record companies in the country. Harrell was faced with the daunting, and ultimately unsuccessful, task of making the label relevant to an industry that had long passed it by. Though the label boasted the talents of the platinum-selling group Boyz II Men on its roster—Harrell’s tenure with the label coincides with the beginning of the group’s descent from the top of the pop charts—the label’s most notable commodity was its tradition and back catalogue.

To his credit, Harrell understood the value of that tradition and began to place his own stamp on the aging brand as an example of what he called “High Negro Style”—upscale, urban, urbane, and just street enough to remind you that the Detroit housing projects supplied Motown with much of its talent in the early 1960s. “Ghetto glamour,” as Harrell described “High Negro Style” in a 1995 cover story for New York magazine, would have been incomprehensible for those audiences who flocked to Motown performances in the 1960s. There’s no denying though, that just below the sheen of respectability and mainstream acceptance that Gordy craved, were the gritty realities of the social world that made his hustle palpable.

Read the Full Essay @ Soul Summer

On-The-Air: Motown's 50th Anniversary

from Minnesota Public Radio

Motown 50th Anniversary

For many, the music of Motown is a soundtrack to their youth. For others, it's forever entwined with the Civil Rights movement. For the rest of us, it's simply great music. Midmorning examines the musical and social legacy of Motown Records.

Guests

Mark Anthony Neal: professor of African-American studies at Duke University. He is the author of several books, including "New Black Man" and "Songs in the Key of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation."

Suzanne Smith: associate professor of history at George Mason University and author of "Dancing in the Streets: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit."

Motown's Forgotten Revolution/Blaze's 25 Years Later

from Vibe.com

CRITICAL NOIR
Motown's Forgotten Revolution
by Mark Anthony Neal

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The 12-inch recording of Public Enemy's "Fight the Power," from the soundtrack of Spike Lee's film Do the Right Thing was released on the Motown label in the summer of 1989. Arguably the track was the most incendiary political recording in the Motown catalogue at the time of its release. Motown's release of "Fight the Power" occurred a year after Gordy has sold the label and Motown was very much in the business of establishing its legacy as a quintessential American brand. Nevertheless the label was still committed to releasing music that was relevant to young Black Americans. It was in this context that the label signed a then little known production collective from New Jersey known as Blaze. In the fall of 1990, Blaze released their only Motown recording, 25 Years Later.

In a period that was marked by renewed expressions of black pride and Afrocentric thought, 25 Years Later essentially recalibrated Motown's relationship to the legacy of black struggle, by wedding the classic Motown sound with post-Civil Rights era black nationalism. 25 Years Later was released at a time when mainstream black popular culture was dominated by so-called conscious rap acts like the aforementioned Public Enemy, KRS-One (whose brilliant Edutainment was released the same year as 25 Years Later), the Five-Percent nations musings of Rakim (with Eric B), Brand Nubian, and Poor Righteous Teachers and the decidedly Womanist politics of Queen Latifah as well as the DIY cultural nationalism of black filmmakers like Spike Lee, Matty Rich, Julie Dash, Robert Townsend and Haile Gerima. As such 25 Years Later was an earnest attempt to capture the full complexities of the moment by mixing snippets of melodramatic exchanges with inspirational music that covered the full gamut of black popular music. In many ways 25 Years Later was a precursor to a Web 2.0 phenomenon like R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet. Particularly remarkable about 25 Years Later, as political scientist Richard Iton notes in his recent book In Search of The Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era , is that it recorded at time when R&B as genre had retreated from political themes, allowing hip-hop to carry the water for a popular black political perspective.

Read Full Essay HERE

Motown @ 50!

from The Root

Half a century later, the Motown sound is still the soundtrack of American life.

Happy Birthday! Motown Turns 50
by Mark Anthony Neal

In the months leading up to the presidential election, much was made about the size of the crowds and the energy level at Obama rallies. For clues, some looked to the Obama playlist—the songs that served as the soundtrack for those frenzied events. True to his overall political strategy, Obama’s playlist cut across various popular genres—country music stalwarts Brooks and Dunn were as likely to be heard as much as the McFadden and Whitehead disco-era classic “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now.”

But the common denominator at so many of those rallies was the sound of Motown, the once fledgling and once black-owned record label founded in Detroit 50 years ago today. The campaign’s embrace of the Motown Sound was likely not happenstance nor simply inspired by the president-elect’s fondness for soul music from the 1960s. More probably, it is the result of the campaign’s legendary attention to minute details and the understanding that the Motown catalogue was uniquely suited to bring together a nation of disparate opinions, concerns and beliefs. As Suzanne Smith writes in Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit, “Motown’s music symbolized the possibility of amicable racial integration through popular culture. But as a company Motown represented the possibilities of black economic independence.”

Read the Full Essay @