R.I.P. Levi Stubbs

Levi Stubbs, the long-time singer for the Four Tops, died on Friday in Detroit. He was 72.

The Four Tops happen to be my favourite Motown group - here are a few of their classics, all with Stubbs on lead vocals:

The Same Old Song - my all-time Tops favourite



Standing in the Shadows of Love - shady sound quality, but great live energy



Reach Out, I'll Be There



Rest in peace, Levi.

Soul Soundtracks: Remember The Titans

Inter-racial soul sing-alongs were a big part of Remember The Titans, the (based-on-a) true story of a newly de-segregated high school football team.

Here's one of several Motown tracks from the album, "You've Got To Earn It" by the Temptations:

Stevie Wonder, Live in Concert

The Guardian has an interesting review of Wonder's recent London gig - by turns scathing, amused and impressed.

Here's a highlight, following the author's (gently mocking?) comments about Stevie's publicly pledged allegiance to Barack Obama:

But there is no ignoring the frisson of electricity running through black music in the US at the moment, and, specifically, through Stevie Wonder, long an activist, and now court musician to the Sun King-to-be. Buoyed by liberal America's Obama-mania, he is in expansive mode. Led onstage by Aisha, beat-boxing into a microphone, he takes up the harmonica, paying tribute to Miles Davis's 'All Blues', into which he manages to work in the melody from 'London Bridge Is Falling Down', charming everyone from the off.

When, finally, he mines his rich vein of peak-period hits in the final half hour, the aisles fill with the dancing figures of black, white, young and old. 'Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours' gives way to the irresistible lift of 'Sir Duke'. It's soon followed by 'Uptight (Everything's Alright)' and the peerless 'Superstition', played just like you remember them. Not for Wonder the endless rearranging indulged in by stars bored of their hits: he plays them all straight, if far too perfunctorily.

Bizarrely, he interrupts this magisterial flow to ask for a moment of silence for the victims of 9/11. As an afterthought, Wonder amends it to include all unnecessary deaths in all wars throughout history. There is no doubting his sincerity. But for all the energy coursing through Wonder, his two-hour show suffers from a lack of focus and unforgivably bad pacing. Can you be struck down by God for insinuating that Stevie Wonder lacks a sense of rhythm? I'm braced.

Dang. I'm trying to imagine - if I should ever have the good fortune to see Stevie live, and to review the show - whether I'd be able to maintain any semblance of professionalism or just gush my way through 800 words.

Actually, on second thought, I'd poke fun at 'Ribbon in the Sky', too.

Cover Art: American Juniors

Remember the short-lived reality TV show American Juniors?

It hit the airwaves in the early days of the American Idol franchise (think Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard era) and the idea was to form an all-kid pop group out of the 5 remaining contestants, who could range in age (if I rememer right) from 6 to 16.

The show exposed a ton of young talent to the world - but it also exposed a lot of scary stage parents, and the necessary pre-commercial break suspense-mongering made a few too many contestants cry. The experiment wasn't repeated for a second season.

Like Idol with its annual Motown night, Juniors drew heavily on the relatively child-friendly content of the 1960s. (You can't exactly have six-year-olds covering How Many Licks, now can you?) I guess if there's one good thing about these shows, it's that, in their own karaoke-night way, they keep some of the classics alive for another generation.

Here's Lucy Hale, doing "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" - note Lamont Dozier and Mary Wilson on the judges panel.



See also: Morgan Burke's take on Build Me Up Buttercup, and 11-year-old Taylor Thompson's cover of Proud Mary.

In Defence of Motown: Marvin Gaye

Anyone who figures Motown had nothing to offer but watered-down pop aimed squarely at the white suburbs must not have been paying much attention to Marvin Gaye. Are you really going to argue that this man had no real soul?

Here's one of my favourite Marvin tracks, Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler) - fronted by a surprisingly high-quality fan vid.

Cover Art: D'Angelo - Cruisin'

D'Angelo pays tribute to his quiet storm predecessors with this take on Smokey Robinson's "Cruisin":

In Defence of Motown: The Marvelettes

Southern Soul types (both fans and industry people) always enjoy taking the same shot at their Motown rivals, arguing that Detroit's finest acts had been polished up and watered down for the benefit of a white audience. In other words: there's no authentic soul in Hitsville, USA.

Certainly most Motown acts don't have the raw dynamism of the early Stax years, but I don't think that makes them a bunch of sell-out hacks as some people like to suggest. Case in point: the Marvelettes. With their unvarnished vocals and (slightly) edgier subject matter (compare the Supremes' "Baby Love" with the Marvelettes' "Don't Mess With Bill"), they've always managed to bring a ragged touch to that polished Motown sound. They're my favourite girl group, and I'd put them up against Carla Thomas any day. Here's "Too Many Fish in the Sea":