If you’re into “folk music” and singer-songwriters, lots of fans of a certain age shared a tears-of-joy moment, watching the Pre-Inaugural Concert at the Lincoln Memorial, when Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen sang “This Land Is Your Land,” using the original 1944 lyrics, per Pete’s specifications. It was an outdoor sing-along for several hundred thousand. (HBO has apparently been trying to take down the Youtube videos of this; try http://beltwayblips.dailyradar.com/video/pete_seeger_bruce_springsteen_this_land_is_your_land/ At the Inauguration there was the quartet with Yo-Yo Ma, playing an interesting (although pre-recorded) composition that incorporated the tune “Tis the Gift To Be Simple.” (I’m still upset at the CNN blabbermouths who felt they had to talk over the performance.)
It was great to see some talented Detroiters front and center at the festivities in DC, since the car executives didn’t exactly light things up when they had the stage down there twice in the past few months. Stevie Wonder sang at the Lincoln Memorial and at the Neighborhood Ball, and Aretha Franklin at the Inaugural. The announcers said that The First Lady of Soul was the third First Lady on the platform: Michelle, Laura, and Sister Ree.
MOTOWN – the record company – marks its 50th anniversary this month. Berry Gordy tried to sign Aretha when she turned 18 and the company was one year old, but she went to Columbia, and then became really successful after moving to Atlantic and teaming with Jerry Wexler. Stevie, on the other hand, signed with Motown at age 12 in 1962, broke away for a year or so when he turned 21, but when he came back he had the authority to produce his own records. Then came the period of all those extraordinary albums, which were not unnoticed by a young Barack Obama. The President once said “When I was just at that point where you start getting involved in music, Stevie Wonder had that run with Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Fulfillingness’ First Finale and Innervisions, and then Songs in the Key of Life. Those are as brilliant a set of five albums as we’ve ever seen.”
Performing Songwriter magazine (www.performingsongwriter.com) profiles the Motown team of Holland-Dozier-Holland this issue, as its tribute to the anniversary. Those three guys wrote dozens of hits for the Temptations and the Supremes and Four Tops and Marvin Gaye, among others. (I remember looking for their names on the labels of 45’s in the stores and in the juke boxes.) For H-D-H, despite a horrible split-up with Motown and a long legal battle with Barry Gordy, it seems like their memories of the golden days are good ones. Check out this list of their better-known songs
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland-Dozier-Holland).
The Motown building on West Grand Boulevard must have been the Detroit version of the Brill Building. People talk about the use of bass and drums, and the voicings of chords, and the Funk Brothers, and the echo-y hallways and bathrooms where they recorded in that big old house — but I think Smokey Robinson had it right, when he said “Listen, the Motown sound to me is not an audible sound. It’s spiritual, and it comes from the people that make it happen.”
Growing up with that great music, I prefer to think I was moved, time and time again, and am still moved to this day by songs like Tears of a Clown, not by production techniques alone, but by something spiritual—a spirit within my hometown. And the Motown I loved was embraced around the country and around the world. Self-identity through music? “This land was made for you and me,” indeed.