Motown Archives - Page 5 of 6 - Ramblin' with Roger

Gladys Knight is 70

Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye) was, appropriately, one of Gladys Knight & the Pips’ last songs at Motown.

Also used for ABC Wednesday, Round 15 – K is for Knight:

Gladys Knight & the Pips, if I had thought of them, I could have put in my weekly family music groups. One of those pieces of trivia I’ve long known is that “at the age of seven in 1952, she won Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour television show contest.” In 1953, Gladys,” her brother Bubba, sister Brenda, and their cousins William and Eleanor Guest started a singing group called ‘The Pips’ (named after another cousin, James ‘Pip’ Woods). The Pips began to perform and tour, eventually replacing Brenda Knight and Eleanor Guest with Langston George in 1959 and Edward Patten in 1963.”

I felt a bit badly for Gladys and the Pips during their tenure at Motown. They were getting a lot of the same songs as the Temptations’ album cuts. Moreover, their biggest hit on the label, Grapevine, was bested on the charts by Marvin Gaye the next year. I remember reading in the press how frustrated the group was when people would ask them why they were doing Marvin’s song.

They moved to Buddah Records in 1973 and later went to Columbia.

Here’s a bit I thought was hysterically funny at the time:

In 1977, the Pips (minus Gladys) appeared on comedian Richard Pryor’s TV special that aired on NBC. They sang their normal backup verses for the… “Midnight Train to Georgia;” during the parts where Gladys would sing, the camera panned on a lone-standing microphone.

The group, which broke up in 1989, when Gladys decided to be a solo artist, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

My favorite songs; LISTEN to all:

15. Every Beat of My Heart (US #6 in 1961) – that early hit; it’d be a while before their next one
14. The End of Our Road (US #15 in 1968) – one of those songs also recorded by the Tempts
13. Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me (US #3; UK #7 in 1974)
12. Friendship Train (US #17 in 1969) – might even be the Tempts’ same musical arrangement
11. The Nitty Gritty (US #19 in 1969)

10. I Don’t Want to Do Wrong (US #17 in 1971)
9. You Need Love Like I Do (Don’t You) (US #25 in 1970) – another Tempts song
8. It Should Have Been Me (US #40 in 1968) – the variation on the Wedding March in the beginning always tickled me
7. Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye) (US #2 in 1973). Appropriately, one of their last songs at Motown.
6. Take Me in Your Arms and Love Me (US #98; UK #13 in 1967) – can’t believe this didn’t do better in the States

5. Daddy Could Swear, I Declare (US #19 in 1973). I even forgive the rhyming of write and right.
4. If I Were Your Woman (US #9 in 1970)
3. I’ve Got to Use My Imagination (US #4 in 1973)
2. Midnight Train to Georgia (US #1 in 1973; UK #10 in 1976)
1. I Heard It Through the Grapevine (US #2 in 1967) – I suppose it’s sacrilege to say, but I’ve always preferred this version to Marvin’s, or Smokey’s, or CCR’s…

From Which “Grapevine” Did You Hear It?

Which iteration should be considered the original? Surely, one could make a case for the Miracles’ version. But many experts would pick the version first released, and that would be the Pips’.

I love good cover versions of songs. Came across a rather fine list from Popdose. And I so agree with the opening statement: “It’s generally agreed upon that if you don’t have any new flavor to add to the original, you shouldn’t bother doing a cover.”

Certainly can’t argue with the top two, “Respect” by Aretha Franklin, originally performed by Otis Redding; and “All Along the Watchtower” by Jimi Hendrix, originally done by Bob Dylan. Both of the original artists have acknowledged the transformative nature of these covers. A previous list I saw contained songs that I had never heard of in the Top 10, which I discovered were less than six years old; seems to me these songs need to stand the test of time

But I have one nit to pick over this list, and it’s around the song “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” As noted here and elsewhere, the song by Motown staff writers Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong was first recorded by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles on August 6, 1966. And Marvin Gaye recorded his version on April 10, 1967. But Berry Gordy, the head of Motown, hated the song & vetoed the releases by both artists.

Gladys Knight and the Pips’ version* was recorded next, and was very reluctantly released by Gordy. It went to #1 on the R&B charts for six weeks, and to #2 on the pop charts for three weeks in the fall of 1967.

It was only after this point that the other two versions were released. The Miracles’ was just an album cut, but Marvin Gaye’s single was #1 for seven weeks on both the R&B and pop charts in the late fall of 1968, a Grammy Hall of Fame winner in 2001. “Gaye’s version has since become a landmark in pop music. In 2004, it ranked No.80 on Rolling Stone’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. On the commemorative 50th Anniversary of the Billboard Hot 100 issue of Billboard magazine in June 2008, Gaye’s version was ranked as the 65th biggest song on the chart.”

So two questions exist for me: first, which iteration should be considered the original? Surely, one could make a case for the Miracles’ version. But many experts, such as Brian Ibbott of Coverville, would pick the version first released, and that would be the Pips’.

Also, how could the panel pick the perfectly fine version of this song by Creedence Clearwater Revival* over the Marvin Gaye classic, even if the latter did get overplayed in the 1980s, around the time of the movie the Big Chill? Not so incidentally, I don’t own the Miracles’ version, but I do have CCR, Gaye, and the Pips, which is actually my favorite take.

And while I’m thinking about Marvin, I would definitely find room on that covers list for Wherever I Lay My Hat, originally done by Gaye, but covered by Paul Young.

*Link to the music

Martha Reeves Turns 70

The Vandellas are now her sisters: Lois, who joined in 1968, and Delphine, who joined in the mid- 1980s.

Martha Reeves and the Vandellas performed at an Alive at Five concert last month in Albany; I didn’t go, having family obligations. Otherwise, I would have, for sure.

The Times Union newspaper wrote an interesting pre-concert piece about Martha and Vandellas touring in the first Motown Review in 1962, and dealing with segregation.

“We stopped at a few gas stations where they said, ‘No, don’t come in here.’ The first time I ever saw a shotgun face-to-face was at one of those places. The man said, ‘Get back on that bus.’ And he came to the bus with a shotgun and said, ‘Don’t another one of you step on this property.’ I tell you, we learned how to go in the woods.”

She laughs about it now, 49 years later. “We served as, basically, Freedom Riders,” she says, referring to civil rights activists who challenged segregation in the South. “That was not our intent, because when we sat at lunch counters we weren’t trying to protest. We were hungry people, trying to get some nourishment.”

“It didn’t happen. They’d say, ‘No, go to the back door.’ I remember being served cold hot chocolate and cold hot dogs. We ate them gladly. … It was rough, but people received our music everywhere we went. When we got back to Detroit after three months, we knew that our records would be in the charts, and they were.”

There were two great Vandellas songs that rank among the best summer songs EVER:
(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave and Dancing in the Street.

But I was always partial to this Smokey Robinson-penned tune: No More Tearstained Make Up. Also from that Watchout! album (which I own), the hit Jimmy Mack.

The Vandellas are now her sisters: Lois, who joined in 1968, and Delphine, who joined in the mid-1980s. But the songs sound the same, Reeves says. I always thought the group, and especially Martha, was underappreciated.

Book Review: Where Did Our Love Go?

Georgia slave owner Jim Gordy had a son named Berry (b. 1854) by his slave Esther Johnson.

One of the strategic things I did on my train ride to Charlotte (and back) is that I did not bring any electronic items – no headphones and music, no laptop, except, necessarily, my cellphone. What I did bring were three books.

The first one I read, actually by the time I reached Washington, DC, was Where Did Our Love Go? – The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound by Nelson George, which I purchased at a library sale. I should say that I’m a big fan of George, who has written about American black music (r&b, soul, hip hop, rap) for a number of years. Back when I had a subscription to Billboard magazine, he was a writer there. I even supported his recent Kickstarter project, Brooklyn Boheme: Fort Greene/Clinton Hill Artists Documentary.

The fact that the book was a tad disappointing may not be George’s fault. The reason I wasn’t as engaged as I might have been is that I had heard most of the narrative – about Berry Gordy writing music for Jackie Wilson, utilizing his family in the business, future stars serving as office workers or, in the case of Marvin Gaye, as a session drummer, the power of the songwriters to lay the same tracks on several artists, the ultimate push for more autonomy by Gaye and Stevie Wonder, and Gordy’s special relation with Diana Ross – before, quite possibly in articles written by Nelson George. So it wasn’t new, though it was complete and well written.

What WAS new for me was the ancestry of Berry Gordy. Georgia slave owner Jim Gordy had a son named Berry (b. 1854) by his slave Esther Johnson. Berry married Lucy Hellum, a woman of black and Indian heritage, who conceived 23 times; nine children survived, including another Berry, born in 1888. He married teacher Bertha Ida Fuller, and in 1929, they had Berry, one of the youngest of their seven children. These first two chapters about race in America were largely new to me, and, therefore, quite fascinating.

The book I recommend to people who know less about Motown than I do, which, immodestly, I suggest is most people.

I’m Walkin’, Renee

Officer Bobby Hill on Hill Street Blues should not to be confused with the kid on the animated program King of the Hill.

Walk Away Renee was clearly the biggest hit for a New York City band called The Left Banke. The lead singer is named Steve Martin, but it’s not the noted comedian. The song reached #5 on the Billboard charts in 1966, made the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame list and is #220 on the Rolling Stone top 500 list. Listen to it HERE.

It was covered by the legendary Motown group The Four Tops, with the great lead singer Levi Stubbs. The recording went to #14 on the pop charts and #15 on the rhythm & blues charts. Listen to it HERE.

When I worked at FantaCo in the 1980s, my boss Tom and I were big fans of the then-current cop drama Hill Street Blues. At one point, Officer Bobby Hill (Michael Warren, pictured) – not to be confused with the kid on the animated program King of the Hill – mentioned liking Walk Away Renee, and said that it came out in 1968. We theorized that this was not an error on the part of the writers, but that Bobby listened to the black radio stations in his youth and was familiar only with the Four Tops version, not the original.
***

Love this parody of the New Titan Titans #1 in MAD magazine #507, but I wonder how many of the MAD readers know the 30-year-old comic cover well enough to truly appreciate the takeoff.