Story of Detroit: Motown ~ "What's Goin' On?"

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Original Motown Records site on West Grand Ave in Detroit

In the junior department at Sears, buying school clothes for my sophomore year of high school with my stylist (my sister Nancy) and Mom, I heard strings and French horns out of the store’s music speaker of a song by then so familiar and adored that my eyes closed involuntarily and my head fell back in a feigned swoon fifteen-year-olds do so well, resulting in a look of disdain on the face of my mother. The song was “Just My Imagination” by the Temptations, one of the many musical groups with countless hits that burst out of this little homemade studio called Motown.

My high school years spanned some of the most thrilling, volatile and frustrating times of my country’s history: 1970-74. We learned about the Watergate scandal and listened to impeccably dressed men testify in hearings on TV (and watched that one wife). Daily on our living room couch we listened to Walter Cronkite behind his TV news desk announce the number of American soldiers killed that day in Vietnam. My brother Bennett wore a black armband in his 1970 college commencement in protest of the war. That year The Temptations of Motown practically spit out the lyrics of their song “War”: War . . . huh . . . what is it good for . . . absolutely nothin’!

War was at a distance. I had no brothers or personal friends fighting in Vietnam. I lived in a small Michigan town far from peace protests in big cities, although Kent State was awfully close in the next state of Ohio, and there were campus protests at our local university. It was through the music collected by my brothers that I felt the war, and it was how my worldview and politics were shaped. I never saved enough money from babysitting to buy my own record albums, so I listened to the radio and played my brothers' albums on the turntable in the bay window while I ironed pillowcases, t-shirts, handkerchiefs and boxer shorts in the dining room. Besides Joni Mitchell's Ladies of the Canyon and Blue albums, I also listened to folk songs of peace by Joan Baez and Pete Seeger, Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance” and “Imagine,” Cat Stevens’ “Peace Train,” “Fortunate Son” by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, my favorite band in those days, had a protest song following the Kent State massacre called "Ohio." There was even a band named "War" with a song "Why Can't We Be Friends." Along the way were sprinkled funkadelic love songs and war songs out of Motown, like The Temptations’ “War.” 

The Temptations' song "War" was so popular that fans wanted a single (remember those?). Motown songwriters Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong decided to release a new more blatant version by Edwin Starr, a different artist, so as not to upset conservative Temptations fans. It's awfully hard to sit still when you listen to music out of Motown, something has to move. I can feel myself wanting to get out on the street in protest when I listen to this song. "War can't give life, it can only take it away!" Someone said Music is the language of lovers. I'll talk more about that, in relation to Motown in another post, but truly, music was one of the healthiest and most powerful ways my generation responded to the travesties being orchestrated in the world.

I was almost oblivious to the fact that some of the music I loved best was being produced down the road in Detroit at Hitsville, U.S.A.: Motown Records, founded by Berry Gordy Jr with an $800 loan from someone in his family. It was the first record label owned by an African American. I just took this music as it came, loving it, but not claiming it as part of my local geography. My older sisters and brothers had heard little Stevie Wonder sing in Lansing when he introduced himself at a Youth for Christ rally: I’m Stevie Wonder, and I sing for Jesus. He signed on with Motown at age 11. Stevie Wonder is now the only remaining artist from the early days on the Motown label that included Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, The Four Tops, Diana Ross & The Supremes, The Jackson 5, Gladys Knight & the Pips, among many, many more.

The Chrysler ad that recently inspired me to turn my attention to Detroit got me out to visit the Motown Historical Museum Saturday, which just happened to be Smokey Robinson’s 71st birthday (February 19). The museum duplex was the original site of Motown Records 1959-1972, after which Berry Gordy moved it to Los Angeles. Smokey and his musical group The Miracles provided the foundation for Motown’s artistic success, and Motown’s founder, Berry Gordy Jr was Smokey’s mentor. Berry made Smokey Vice President of Motown, which he remained until Berry sold the company in 1988 (for $61 million, not including music rights sold later). I'll tell you more about my two hours in this beautifully preserved, humble space that produced some of the most electrifying and long lasting music ever, in future posts.

This Thursday the Obamas will host Smokey Robinson and other Motown singers in another of their  "In Performance at the White House" concerts, this time honoring Motown’s music. They have already honored other American music genres with concerts and workshops for students: classical, Broadway, Latin, country, jazz, and music from the Civil Rights movement. It will be aired on PBS March 1. I don't know if anyone will sing what Rolling Stone ranked as the fourth greatest song of all time, but the man who co-wrote and recorded it won't be there to sing, sadly. The song was written and released under Tamla, the original Motown label, and one of the multiple subsidiary labels Motown eventually created. It was a turbulent time of war and race tensions. You can see some of that history in the photograph montage in the version I've chosen, below. Marvin Gaye himself had a troubled life, and it ended in a terrible episode of domestic violence on April Fool's Day in 1984 when he tried to intervene in a fight between his parents. His dad had a loaded gun. It went off, killing Marvin the day before his 45th birthday, making this song an incessant question that never seems to live into an answer.

I'll post more about Motown, and Detroit, in the days ahead.

What's Goin' On

Mother, mother

There's too many of you crying

Brother, brother, brother

There's far too many of you dying

You know we've got to find a way

To bring some lovin' here today - Yeah

Father, father

We don't need to escalate

You see, war is not the answer

For only love can conquer hate

You know we've got to find a way

To bring some lovin' here today

Picket lines and picket signs

Don't punish me with brutality

Talk to me, so you can see

Oh, what's going on

What's going on

Yeah, what's going on

Ah, what's going on

In the mean time

Right on, baby

Right on

Right on

Father, father, everybody thinks we're wrong

Oh, but who are they to judge us

Simply because our hair is long

Oh, you know we've got to find a way

To bring some understanding here today

Oh

Picket lines and picket signs

Don't punish me with brutality

Talk to me

So you can see

What's going on

Yeah, what's going on

Tell me what's going on

I'll tell you what's going on - Uh

Right on baby

Right on baby

~ Written by Renaldo "Obie" Benson, Al Cleveland, and Marvin Gaye

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