Michael Jackson -- "Rock with You" (1980)

My personal memories of Michael Jackson:

1) Sitting in the back of my camp bus with a bunch of kids singing "The Love You Save" over and over to the AM radio.

2) Watching the Jackson Five cartoon series on Saturday mornings.

3) Finding it hard to believe he'd have such a huge hit with a song about a mouse from a horror movie ("Ben").

4) Watching NBC-TV's "Motown 25 Special" where he moonwalked his way across the stage and blew the world's minds.

5) Always inserting "I Want You Back" on every one of my early 80's party tapes. Motown made a resurgence in when New Wave was in full force.

6) Although Thriller sold a bazillion copies, I always thought the one before it, Off The Wall, was better. Less theatrical, more gritty. Who could top the bass intro and whirling arrangement of the opening "Wanna Be Starting Something?"

That came very close to my favorite, "Rock With You," written by Rod Temperton. Just that little snare drum snap to attention intro, and you had to go dancing with Michael. Great vocal overdubs, chord combos, hiking up a half key, and you didn't have to moonwalk. Rolled up my blazer sleeves and got taken in.

Michael Jackson - Rock with you
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The Temptations -- "Ball of Confusion" (1970)

Another sad death this week -- Norman Whitfield, one of Motown's most brilliant producers and songwriters. His best work was with the Temptations, and I wrote about an earlier hit they did with him, "Can't Get Next To You" from 1969.

Whitfield pioneered Motown's "psychedelic soul" era, stripping away the orchestrated slickness and love obsessions of Smokey Robinson and Holland-Dozier-Holland, and taking it right to the street, where race riots, poverty and war could no longer be ignored. "Ball Of Confusion" was a turning point for all involved, as this was Whitfield's first step into raw territory.

Whitfield altered his production techniques to suit the new mood, while keeping Motown's in-house session band, the Funk Brothers, raw and heavy. More distortion and certainly more in-your-face.

All centered on pretty much one chord, "Ball of Confusion" had a killer bass riff based on a seventh pattern, the kind you know instantly the way you know Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love." With a clean electric guitar strumming a hard funk riff in time, legendary falsetto Eddie Kendricks grabs you by the collar with the very first two sentences, then Dennis Edwards' tough rasp for the next part of the verse, and you know, this ain't no typical Motown love song.

People moving out, people moving in.
Why, because of the color of their skin.
Run, run, run but you sure can't hide.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Vote for me and I'll set you free!
Rap on, brother, rap on.
Well, the only person talking about love thy brother is the preacher.
And it seems nobody's interested in learning... but the teacher.
Segregation, determination, demonstration, integration,
Aggravation, humiliation, obligation to our nation.
Ball of confusion. Oh yeah, that's what the world is today. Hey, hey.

This was a song of rage and paranoia, of complaint and observation. It was a whole new world, with brothers being shipped off to Vietnam, cities burning down, anger and cries for justice and freedom. Nothing like the Motown for the past several years, when it was "I Second That Emotion" or "Sugar Pie Honey Bunch." The times were changing and Whitman used the Temptations to drag them along into it.

Whitfield's production was ingenious. Chugging on that one chord funk groove, the song shifts a few times to what I call "the circus break" -- a united horn section cranking a three note I-IV-V progression, percussion cooking, and a wailing harmonica and then an intense wham with the whole group shouting: Hey oogabooga, can't you hear me talking to you, just a ball of confusion. That's what the world is today... hey, hey!

Rest in peace.

The Spinners -- "It's A Shame" (1970)

The Spinners were one of the Philly Sound super groups of the 70's, recording for Atlantic Records and working with songwriter/producer genius (yes, I know it's that word) Thom Bell. However, before they were on Atlantic, they recorded for Motown and this was not only their first hit, but by far their biggest and maybe only hit for that label.

What is so distinct about "It's A Shame" is that it's early Stevie Wonder written-and-produced. Lately, I've been reading former Rolling Stone magazine editor Ben Fong-Torres' compilation Not Fade Away, where he interviewed Wonder in early 1973. His album Talking Book had come out the year before, Innervisions was on its way, and for the first time, he carried a lot of clout at Motown. Wonder explains that even though his first production credit was on the Signed, Sealed and Delivered album, the first actual production gig he did was this Spinners single.

The "Signed, Sealed and Delivered" single was the musical reference point for "It's A Shame," both featuring ringing sitar-like clean guitar leads, in-the-pocket grooves from in-house bassist James Jamerson, and a kind of pumping drum playing, which I am not sure was Wonder himself or one of the "Funk Brothers."

I didn't even realize that "It's A Shame" was the one and only Spinners single to feature lead vocalist G.C. Cameron because I always knew the group's lead singer was the great Philip Wynne. But Cameron remained at Motown and married Berry Gordy's daughter when the Spinners split for Atlantic Records. You hear it's the Spinners, you assume it's the same guys, but it turns out not to be so.

In Fong-Torres' interview, Wonder explains why groups like The Spinners left Motown: "Writers are so important. I think a lot of our artists could have been more successful if they had other writers, besides Holland-Dozier-Holland, because then they would have found their identity -- and that's what everybody needs." He elaborates later on: "It's difficult to be a sustaining power for a long period of time. It's like a person comes out with a beat, and you keep on doing it and doing it and riving it into the ground."

Of course, the irony is that the Spinners spent years under Thom Bell's wing, producing a long series of soul classics.

While the Spinners will be mostly remembered for those Atlantic hits, "It's A Shame" is as much a big party song as its "Signed Sealed and Delivered" template, with those chiming Fender rhythm guitars, popping horn arrangement, and the group echoing "sha-ame" during those verses.

I've got a few videos in honor of "It's A Shame." The first is a straightforward video tribute soundtracked with the single, and another from 1989 featuring G.C. Cameron doing his remake of the song on a Detroit TV show (and you can easily tell that he's got the lead voice of the single). The third is really an appreciation of what Motown bassist James Jamerson did in songs like "It's A Shame," so here is a one-minute shot of a talented guy playing Jamerson's part, and you can see there was a lot going on across that fretboard, you may not have realized it. That dude put some swing underneath this great song.

Rare Earth -- "Get Ready" (1970)

As time goes on, it seems appreciation for some of the great Motown artists is fading. Not only did Rare Earth have a phenomenal run of hits in 1970 and 1971, but ten years later, I remember playing them at parties and getting a huge reaction. I wonder if that would happen now?

Rare Earth was the first "rock" band signed by Motown, although that label is a misnomer. Just like Santana, Rare Earth combined rock with other genres, but the emphasis here was definitely on 70's funk and jazz. Motown even gave their label the Rare Earth name to emphasize rock acts (or white boys, who knows?).

Look at that album cover and you're not thinking rock band at all. They are so clean cut behind that gauzy lens, you would think they were some pop vocal act singing Paul Anka covers.

Don't judge this book by its cover. These guys totally cooked. Exhibit A is the 21 minute cover version of The Temptations' "Get Ready" that takes up side two of this first Motown album. Rumored to not have enough material, they performed what was their usual final jam from their live show. When the song was released as a single, it was drastically edited down to three minutes or so and became a true smash hit. I think it did even better than the Temptations version (which was released in 1966 and written by Smokey Robinson).

On both the album and single versions, there's a lot of audience noise, screaming and whistling, but I was never quite sure if that was real. I don't believe the album mentions a live venue location, which probably means it was dubbed on.

Motown was constantly recycling its own song catalog for its artists. Even if a song flopped, they'd reuse it with at least another artist to see if it would fly right this time. For example, both "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" and "Ain't Mountain High Enough" were huge hits twice for different Motown artists. Rare Earth had success with two Temptations hits -- "Get Ready" and "(I Know) I'm Losing You" -- by radically re-arranging the songs.

One of the cooler things about Rare Earth is that the drummer, Pete Rivera, was also the lead singer, and you can see him doing both simultaneously in the early 70's video below. Rivera had a very deep soulful voice that was immediately commanding and irreplaceable when he left the band in 1975.

Below are three videos of "Get Ready." The first is the 45 being played on a turntable, so you can here how this epic jam session was cut down to three minutes of party time soul/rock.

The second is Rare Earth performing the song live in 1973, now with an additional Latino percussionist, firing up a storm as electric as any early Santana show. I'm knocked out by Rivera, who is totally zoned in to his drumming with his eyes closed, singing at the same time, completely getting into the sweaty groove.

Boy, I would have loved to have seen these guys in concert back then. You have to love the days when popular rock acts would perform with their shirts off, like the keyboardist does here (and seems to in just about every Rare Earth video I've found), while Rivera is all muscle shirt. And I'm just digging that whole crowd dancing to the song.

The third is a knockout black and white clip of The Temptations performing "Get Ready" in 1966. Check out the Temps' dance moves, Eddie Kendricks singing lead, and the girls going crazy in the upper part of the stage.

As far as I'm concerned, these last two videos are mandatory viewing.

The Temptations -- "Can't Get Next To You" (1969)

The Temptations are my favorite Motown group because I got into their style of "psychedelic soul." For all the trouble Stevie Wonder got for addressing contemporary topics, Temptations producer Norman Whitfield had no problem jumping right into poverty, crime, taxes and the Vietnam War.

However, there was nothing topical about "Can't Get Next To You." There was also nothing traditional about it either, since Whitfield created one of Motown heyday's most unusual arrangements in about two minutes and 30 seconds. I always put this song on my party tapes for guaranteed dancing.

The song doesn't even start off with music, but a door slowly creaking open, wild party screaming, and suddenly Dennis Edwards hushes them and says: "Hold it, hold it, listen...." There's a low slow and bluesy piano riff, and then a horn section does three powerful blasts, the piano does a quick little twist and then right into the song.

Way before the "pumping effect" was used in electronic music, Whitfield somehow created a similar effect with this driving beat and "suction" feel of the instrumentation. This is not the Temptations of "My Girl" and "Since I Lost My Baby," but their new era of fuzzy electric guitars and funky rhythms.


Each member of the Temptations takes a line of the verse, with practically no space in between, so it's wonderful to hear them showing off their individual styles:

(Dennis Edwards): I can turn a gray sky blue.
(Melvin Franklin): I can make it rain, whenever I wanted to.
Oh...
(Eddie Kendricks): I can build a castle from a single grain of sand.
(Paul Williams): I can make a ship sail, uh, on dry land.

After two verses, the song segues into the "train section," where the beat smoothes out into a major key break, and the Temps vocalize their "ooo" that it damn well sounds like a choo choo to me. Then right back to the beat with verse three, and a showstopping pause -- "Cos' I-I-I-I-I... woah, I-I-I-I-I...." and the group comes in like the military with "Can't get next to you!"

What is notable about the two videos below is that Eddie Kendricks is in one and missing in the other. Kendricks left the group to go solo in 1970, so this black and white live video must have been done at that time, considerably after the song was a hit. It's fun to see the group covering for Kendricks trademark falsetto lines.

The Supremes - "Up The Ladder To The Roof" (1970)

When Diana Ross started her Berry Gordy-engineered solo career, it was not the end of the Supremes. Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong were joined by Jean Terrell, sister of singer Tammi, and they were off to the top of the charts with hit singles of their own.

While all those old Diana Ross and The Supremes songs were classics, from "Baby Love" to "Someday We'll Be Together," I'd venture to say that "Up The Ladder To The Roof" was easily their equal.

You have to give Motown credit for not only keeping the Supremes going (maybe they figured the public would still think Ross was still in the group?), but giving them an excellent writing and production team to create a new path. Frank Wilson, who would go on to mastermind Eddie Kendricks' "Keep On Truckin'" arranged, produced and co-wrote "Up The Ladder To The Roof." I don't know why Wilson does not get any of the acclaim that Holland-Dozier-Holland or Norman Whitfield did, because he certainly kept Motown rolling in successful product.

Is it not ingenious to start the song "cold" on the line "Come with me?" Terrell did sound somewhat like Ross but with a slightly thicker tone. To me, it seemed Wilson took the guitar lick and orchestra sound of "Someday We'll Be Together" and took it to the next step. You have the patented Motown hi hat clasp and downbeat, much like the Gladys Knight & The Pips version of "I Heard It Through The Grapevine," quarter note ride cymbals, and the twangy guitar that cries out like a cat during the chorus.

The song genuinely propels itself, with the Supremes' and Terrell's vocals becoming more intertwined and complex as it goes on, in almost a beck and call towards the end. While there are countless come-on's in popular music, this one has sort of a sincerity to "come up the ladder to the roof/where we can see heaven much better." Isn't that what Carole King and Gerry Goffin wrote about in "Up On The Roof" for the Drifters?

Come with me, come with me
And we shall run across the sky.
We illuminate the night.
Ohhhh, i, I will try and guide you
To better times and brighter days.
Just don't be afraid.

The arrangement's clincher is when Terrell's voice gradually rises in the final verse ("I will never ever ever leave you leave you alone to wonder/As we go on our love it will grow much stronger and stronger"), the music suddenly stops as we hear the brief reverb of the word "stronger," and in a gospel flourish she beckons "Don't you wanna go?" Then it all comes back in louder than ever with tambourine and handclaps: "Up the ladder to the roof!" Mary and Cindy go back and forth with Terrell, as she calls to them: "Come on and walk. (ooo) Come on and talk. (ooo). Come on and sing about love and understanding!"

This is really perfect classic pop/soul music in a mere three minutes.

I don't know what TV show this video is from, but here they are from 1970, in those gloriously flashy glittering red gowns, impeccably choreographed. Just beautiful.

Marvin Gaye - "Trouble Man" (1972)

I was driving home tonight from the train station listening to XM Radio's RealJazz station, when they played a slow swinging version of Marvin Gaye's "Trouble Man" sung by Cassandre McKinley. A tough song to do, but it was a sign to devote a post to this unique Gaye classic.

We all know all the many hits -- "Your Precious Love," "Mercy Mercy Me," "Inner City Blues," "Sexual Healing," and of course, "What's Going On," which I never tire of.

As Gaye moved out on his own, the jazz influences became more and more pronounced, from the loosening drums to the chords and their changes. Between the "What's Going On" album in 1971 and "I Want You" in 1976, Gaye was asked to score a "blaxploitation" film called Trouble Man. It seems a lot of popular black artists of the day did one of these, including Isaac Hayes, James Brown, and perhaps the most famous one of them all, Isaac Hayes' classic score for Shaft (with Curtis Mayfield's Superfly a close second).

Like a number of these films that were churned out, Trouble Man came and went very quickly, a hard-nosed detective played by Robert Hooks stumbling into a floating dice game and masked robbers and who ripped off who. The 60-second TV trailer is below and it truly has to be seen ("You jive him, he'll wash you away!").

The title song was truly an individual statement by Gaye. You can call it his version of the detective theme song, badass but dark and complex. It was a swinging set of Gaye on drums, a dizzying vibraphone motif, and a lowdown minor-key blues groove made for finger snapping like "West Side Story." With a saxophone wailing and strings building and subsiding, Gaye's falsetto exudes ice cold coolness:

I come up hard, baby
But now I'm cool
I didn't make it, sugar
Playin' by the rules

I come up hard, baby
But now I'm fine
I'm checkin' trouble, sugar
Movin' down the line

The whole Trouble Man soundtrack is a must-buy, simply to hear Gaye's jazz/blues score, which features a number of wordless falsetto vocals over the simmering grooves. One of the instrumentals, "Don't Mess With Mr. T," was later covered by jazz saxophonist Stanley Turrentine.

Below are some true video highlights surrounding this song: the original hilarious 60-second trailer of the 1972 movie, a nicely done homemade video of the title song, a smokin' jazzy live cover by Joni Mitchell featuring trumpeter Mark Isham, and finally a sexy funky hip-hop version by Neneh Cherry in the UK.

Eddie Kendricks - "Keep On Truckin'" (1973)

Eddie Kendricks, the unmistakable falsetto voice of Motown group The Temptations, left for a solo career and his first single just blasted right up the charts.

Like "Green-Eyed Lady," the heavily edited version works fine, but nothing beats the eight-minute epic from the original album or "Ultimate" collection.

The song's production is full -- with strings, horns, prominent clavinet, and xylophone solo -- but it's a mess that actually totally works. You can sort of tell where they spliced the song in the long version, because there's almost no transition from one section to the other. Yet, the groove is so strong, you don't even notice those splices. The ascending minor chord pattern repeats itself in just about every way possible, but each one never for long.

While everything but the kitchen sink grooves for eight minutes, it's pretty much down to Kendricks singing "I'll keep on keep on truckin' bay-bay/I've got to keep o-o-o-on truckin'/Got to get your good lovin'." Right through to the break, where it's just handclaps and Kendricks double-tracked: "I'm the red ball express of lovin'/Diesel-powered straight to you, I'm truckin.'" OK, whatever you say, Eddie.

Actually, it doesn't matter what he says at all. It's the whole over the top relentless production that makes this song a classic.

Of true geek significance is that this is one of the several pop hits created from a popular expression of the day. When counterculture cartoonist Robert Crumb created his Mr. Natural character, he always had him groovin' with one foot extended out with "Keep on Truckin'" over his head (see illustration above left). We'll be looking at more of these "expression" songs, like the outstanding soul song based on a slogan made popular by the late great comedian Flip Wilson on his early 70's TV show.

Six months after "Keep On Truckin'" hit the top of the charts, his Motown production team decided to clone the song and production concept with "Boogie Down" ("Boogie/Boogie down baby/Boo-oo-oo-oogie down!"). It flew pretty high, but it still felt like a blatant attempt to do the same song twice. After that, Kendricks never quite had a major hit again, and traveled the reunion circuit with his old Temps pal David Ruffin until Daryl Hall and John Oates took them on tour in the 80's.