“Get Ready” to be indulged by the Motown sound and other sixties and seventies gems in this episode of Ramblin’ Tunes.
| TITLE | ARTIST | COMMENTS |
|---|---|---|
| Uptown Top Ranking | Althea & Donna | Don’t worry if you don’t get the Rastafarian patois of this Jamaican female duo. This song became a hit in the UK after John Peel started to promote it on his BBC Radio 1 evening show and even the Britons didn’t understand the lyrics. 17-year-old Althea Rose Forrest and 18 year-old Donna Marie Reid used various local slang words. “Uptown Top Ranking” describes what a country Jamaican does when he goes to the city to show off and was a response to “Three Piece Suit” by Trinity (a Jamaican DJ), who used samples of Marcia Aitken’s ‘I’m Still In Love’. Black Box Recorder made an offbeat version of Uptown Top Ranking on their 1998 album England Made Me., here is Black Box Recorder. |
| I’m Still In Love With You / Three Piece Suit | Marcia Aitken & Trinity | Marcia Aitken’s “I’m Still in Love” (with you boy) reggae hit in 1977 is a cover of Alton Ellis’s “I’m Still in Love With You” (1977), one of the innovators of rocksteady (“Godfather of Rocksteady”). “Three Piece Suit” by (Jamaican DJ) Trinity used samples of Marcia Aitken’s ‘I’m Still In Love’. |
| Girl I’ve Got a Date | Alton Ellis | Alton Ellis (born Alton Nehemiah Ellis on 1 September 1938 in Kingston, Jamaica) was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and one of the innovators of rocksteady (given the informal title “Godfather of Rocksteady”). Ellis recorded “Girl I’ve Got a Date” in 1966 with Jackie Jackson on bass. It is considered one of the foundational songs of the rocksteady genre. The bass line of “Girl I’ve Got a Date” was allegedly duplicated in other international hits “The Liquidator” (Harry J Allstars and “I’ll Take You There” (The Staple Singers). |
| I’ll Take You There | The Staple Singers | I’ll Take You There” is a song by soul/gospel family band the Staple Singers, written by Al Bell and recorded with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. Hip-hop trio Salt-N-Pepa sampled “I’ll Take You There” in their 1991 hit “Let’s Talk About Sex”. |
| Lets Talk About Sex | Salt-N-Pepa | American hip-hop group ‘Salt-N-Pepa’ released “Let’s Talk About Sex” in 1991. It samples “I’ll Take You There” by the Staple Singers. Salt-N-Pepa was formed in New York City in 1985 with Salt (Cheryl James), Pepa (Sandra Denton), and DJ Spinderella (Deidra Roper). |
| Teach Your Children | Kathy Mattea, Suzy Bogguss, Alison Krauss with Crosby, Stills & Nash | Red Hot + Country (or RH+C), released in September 1994, is a classic country compilation album produced to raise awareness and money to fight AIDS/HIV as well as other related health and social issues. The album featured “Teach Your Children” performed by Suzy Bogguss, Alison Krauss and Kathy Mattea with Crosby, Stills, and Nash. |
| Wake Up Everybody | John Legend & The Roots | Wake Up! is a collaborative studio album by American R&B recording artist John Legend and hip hop band The Roots. Inspired by the 2008 United States presidential election, Legend and The Roots primarily covered 1960s and 1970s soul music songs for the album with social themes of awareness, engagement, and consciousness. The album’s lead single, “Wake Up Everybody”, a cover of Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes song of the same name, was released on April 29, 2010, and features rapper Common and Canadian R&B singer Melanie Fiona. |
| If You Don’t Know Me by Now | Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes | “If You Don’t Know Me by Now” is a song written by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, and recorded by the Philadelphia soul musical group Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. It was originally written for Labelle (a trio led by Patti LaBelle) but they never recorded it. |
| Lady Marmalade | Labelle | Philadelphia soul group Labelle with Patti LaBelle (born Patricia Louise Holte on May 24, 1944) as lead vocals on “Lady Marmalade” with backing vocals by bandmates Nona Hendryx and Sarah Dash. The song was written by Bob Crewe and Kenny Nolan who initially recorded it with his disco band The Eleventh Hour. Allen Toussaint decided to record the song with Labelle. Their manager Vicki Wickham (and Nona Hendryx’ partner), inspired by “watching pantos when she was a kid”, David Bowie and Elton John, gave them the glam style. Patti, with the powerhouse lead vocals, Nona, with the iconic futuristic fashion looks and stage presence, and Sarah, with the seductive and fun energy, turned Labelle into a super group. Vicki Wickham was besides assistant producer of the 1960s British television show Ready Steady Go! Also manager of Dusty Springfield who co-presented the show. After Labelle called it quits in 1976, Hendryx released her debut record Nona Hendryx, which was an amazingly strong amalgam of soul and hard rock. Nona Hendryx is a gay-rights activist and joined Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors Tour (raising awareness of discrimination and the LGBT community) in the summer of 2008. |
| I Only Want to Be With You | Dusty Springfield | Born Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien (16 April 1939 – 2 March 1999), better known by her stage name Dusty Springfield, launched her successful career in 1963 with “I Only Want to Be With You”. At age 16, she started as a lifelong professional singer and only worked three weeks in an insurance company. The Queen of Blue-Eyed Soul hosted the ‘Ready Steady Go!’ TV special called ‘The Sound of Motown’ in 1965 and performed with the Funk Brothers and Martha and the Vandellas. Martha and Dusty remained friends until Dusty’s death. |
| (Love Is Like A) Heat Wave | Martha Reeves & The Vandellas | “Heat Wave” by Martha and the Vandellas is a 1963 song written by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Edward Holland, Jr. (Holland–Dozier–Holland) with Instrumentation by the Funk Brothers delivering the typical “Motown sound”. |
| Where Did Our Love Go | Diana Ross & The Supremes | Diana Ross, (born Diane Earle, on March 26, 1944 in Detroit) together with the Supremes was the flagship act of with Berry Gordy’s Motown Records in 1960. In 1964 Holland-Dozier-Holland gave the Supremes their first number one single with “Where Did Our Love Go.” The Supremes were the idealized look and sound of the “integrated Negro.” |
| I’ve Got the Music In Me | The Kiki Dee Band & Kiki Dee | In the 1960’s Kiki Dee was on the same label as Dusty Springfield, Fontana Philips, and did some backing vocals for her. At age twenty, she became the first white UK artist to sign with Tamla Motown Records. In 1970 she released an album “Great Expectations” with Motown covers. “I’ve Got the Music In Me” was her first US hit in 1974 and did her own backing vocals on the recording. Bias Boshell, on piano and electric piano, wrote the song. The song is about a free-spirited yet pragmatic woman who’s on her way up in life due to her musical talent and isn’t going to let anything get her down or stand in her way. Kiki Dee (born Pauline Matthews on 6 March 1947) is a lifelong professional singer. She left school at 15 and only worked for three months at Boots. |
| Indiana Wants Me | R. Dean Taylor | In 1963, Canadian, Richard Dean Taylor signed as a writer and artist for Motown Records and became part of The Clan, the group of Motown composers. In 1970, Dean recorded “Indiana Wants Me” and became the first white artist in the history of Motown to reach #1 on the US charts. Taylor was inspired by the movie “Bonnie and Clyde” he had seen. When “Indiana Wants Me” was released, the content was controversial. It opened with a (very realistic) police siren which had to be removed to get airplay in California. Promoter Al Valente decided to release the promo copies for the radio stations on red vinyl. |
| The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde | Georgie Fame & The Blue Flames | “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde” is a song, written by Mitch Murray and Peter Callander and recorded by the British rhythm and blues singer Georgie Fame & The Blue Flames. In fact ticket sales were so sluggish even for a bill with that line-up that the Number One act in the UK, Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames whose Yeh Yeh was the currently top of the charts, was added to the line-up for extra box office appeal. Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames were added to the line-up of the 1965 Tamla Motown Package Show, a 24 day trip visiting 21 theatres for two shows a night – plus a Ready Steady Go! TV special called ‘The Sound of Motown’ (introduced by Dusty Springfield and RSG producer Vicki Wickham) featuring Martha & The Vandellas, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Little (14 years old) Stevie Wonder and The Supremes, all backed by the Earl Van Dyke Six, crack members of the Funk Brothers. |
| Going To A Go-Go | Smokey Robinson & The Miracles | “Going to a Go-Go” by Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, a song about the sixties (go-go) disco clubs. The Miracles were formed by members of The Matadors and Claudette Rogers from The Matadorettes. “Going to a Go-Go” was covered by The Rolling Stones on their 1982 live album Still Life. |
| Fingertips, Pt. 2 | Little Stevie Wonder | The big revelation in the US at Motown’s ‘Motortown Revue’ was the twelve year old ‘Little Stevie Wonder’. It was from a live Motortown Revue performance that Little Stevie Wonder got his first big hit, the 1963 No. 1 hit “Fingertips (Pt. 2)”. The Motortown Revue was the name given to the package concert tours of Motown artists in the 1960s. Recorded in 1963 during a Motortown Revue performance at the Regal Theater in Chicago, featured drumming by Marvin Gaye, member of the Motown houseband The Funk Brothers. |
| My Girl | The Temptations | The Temptations, another band that came out of “Hitsville U.S.A.” with “My Girl” written by Smokey Robinson for his wife, Miracles member Claudette Rogers Robinson, and all the women in the world in mind. The year before, Robinson had written “My Guy” for Mary Wells. |
| My Guy | Mary Wells | Mary Wells’ smash hit “My Guy”, written by Smokey Robinson was her last solo recording for Motown and Motown’s first British hit. Before leaving Motown, Wells recorded in the ‘Hitsville U.S.A.’ studio the album ‘Together’ with rising star Marvin Gaye. But it takes two to tango, so when Wells left Motown, Gaye teamed up with Kim Weston from Detroit. |
| It Takes Two | Marvin Gaye & Kim Weston | When Mary Wells left Motown, Gaye teamed up with Kim Weston from Detroit. ‘It Takes Two’ was written by William “Mickey” Stevenson and Sylvia Moy and released in 1966. Sylvia Moy, born in Detroit, was the first woman to write and produce for Motown artists, in particular for Stevie Wonder. Marvin Gaye was a session drummer and backup singer with the Motown in-house band and drummer for the Miracles. |
| Your Precious Love | Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell | This recording embraces all elements of Marvin Gaye’s entourage at the time with the talented Tammi Terrell, backing vocals and producer Harvey Fuqua and instrumentals by The Funk Brothers. “Your Precious Love” by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell in 1967 was the duo’s biggest hit written by the Motown husband-and-wife writers Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson. The same year, Tammi collapsed in Marvin’s arms during a performance in Virginia. Diagnosed with brain tumor, she died three years later at age 24. Her demise traumatized Marvin. He refused to perform live and grew reclusive. |
| I Heard It Through The Grapevine | Marvin Gaye | Motown was a family operation in which Berry Gordy’s older sisters played prominent roles. Marvin Gaye had married in 1963 one of Gordy’s sisters, Anna, a woman seventeen years older. In 1968 Motown released “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” a mystical re-rendering of Gladys Knight & the Pips’ hit in 1967 with the voodoo rhythms of the Funk Brothers. Reflecting the turbulence in his marriage to Anna, the song became on of the biggest sellers in Motown history and turned Marvin Gaye into a superstar. |
| The Flick (Earl Van Dyke) | The Funk Brothers | ‘The Flick’ was co-written by Earl Van Dyke and released by the ‘Earl Van Dyke & The Soul Brothers’ in 1965. The typical Motown sound was not only due to the recording rooms, like the unique ‘Snakepit’ and the ‘echo chambers’, and the equipment and instruments used at the “Hitsville U.S.A.” studios but also because of the talented house band musicians: the “Earl Van Dyke & the Soul Brothers” or later called The Funk Brothers. Standing in the Shadows of Motown is a 2002 American documentary film that tells the story of The Funk Brothers. |
| Pops, We Love You | Marvin Gaye | When Berry Gordy, the father of Motown passed away in 1978, Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder, payed tribute to him with the song “Pops, We Love You (A Tribute to Father)” The song is written by Marilyn McLeod, Pam Sawyer and recorded at the Motown Studios in Los Angeles. In 1972, Berry Gordy had relocated the Motown Records headquarters and established Hitsville West studio in Los Angeles. |
Sources
The information sources of the song facts include, but are not limited to, Wikipedia, songfacts.com, discogs.com, secondhandsongs.com, YouTube and artists’ related websites.
