Watching Justin Timberlake on the Grammy Awards show last Sunday, I was finally won over; his calculated campaign to remake his career from boy-band heartthrob into credible artist has worked. For Justin, this has involved earning his street creds as a white musician who can channel black styles like hip-hop and R&B. The beauty part is, he didn’t even have to act like a thug, unlike Eminem (or, if you can remember back that far, Vanilla Ice). And then there was the newly platinum-blond Christina Aguilera, doing her smokin’ version of James Brown’s “It’s A Man’s, Man's, Man's World.”
At least in Grammy land, it seems, black is beautiful in a way that would have astonished Chuck Berry and Little Richard, who had to watch that white boy Elvis Presley hailed as an innovator just for singing the kind of music they’d been doing all along.
How things have changed. Back in the 1960s, it was Berry Gordy’s dream to win over white listeners to Motown. Stax and Muscle Shoals were the guardians of a more “authentic” black sound (never mind that plenty of white musicians were playing down in those Memphis studios), but up in Detroit, Gordy’s sights were trained on selling singles to a mass audience and getting radio play on mainstream radio stations – and “crossover” was the name of the game. Inevitably, Motown artists paid a price for crossover — once white artists appropriated their sounds, they could do with them as they pleased... and it wasn’t always pretty.
Last Sunday on the Grammys, we saw Smokey Robinson trotted out to sing his elegant, soulful “Tracks of My Tears,” so naturally that song comes to mind. It’s sweet, it’s sorrowful, it’s pleading for pity, and I completely buy that this singer is as broken-hearted as he says. Linda Ronstadt’s 1975 cover of it is another thing altogether. It’s as if she’s determined to show off her powerful vocal cords by yelling every chorus at top volume, practically yodeling the lines that Smokey delivered with a delicate frisson. I suppose someone thought the plodding backing arrangement made it sound sadder, or a little more country, perhaps. Who knows? The bottom line is, I don’t buy her sorrow one bit. If I were one of her girlfriends, I’d be saying, “Could you shut up already? He broke up with you two weeks ago – get over it!” Game, set, and match to Smokey.
Article comments
1 - Brian Quinn
Once and for all I would like to dispel the myth that Elvis Presley stole his music from the black culture.
Elvis was a true original and genius in that he fused R& B, country and gospel into one making it his alone. Elvis could sing virtually anything and make it believable.
Elvis did not have the personality to steal anything from anybody and anyone who has read enough about him should be smart enough to know that. The people who met him certainly did and this is well documented.
R.I.P. Elvis
2 - Holly Hughes
Good point. Elvis didn't steal anything, and he put his own unique and inimitable stamp on what he did. A great artist, no doubt about it.
However, there's no question that it was easier to market Elvis (and Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins) to a wide audience because they were white. Many of Elvis's fans in the 50s had simply never heard anything like his music before . . . but that does not mean that it came from outer space. As you yourself point out, it incorporated many different strands of music, black and white. And even when Elvis broke through into the mainstream culture, some of those black innovators who paved the way for him were still left in relative obscurity.
3 - bryan price
First off, this was one of the best things that I have ever read on this site.
Second. It is a well established fact that Sam Phillips was looking for a white singer to have a "special" sound which was a euphemism for black. That singer was Elvis. Three of the five singles he recorded for sun records, "That's Alright Mama," "Good Rockin' Tonight," and "Mystery Train," were all written and performed originally by black artists. Respectively, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Roy Brown and Little Junior Parker. The other two Sun singles were written by Elvis and I defy anyone to name them, without looking them up.
Maybe Elvis didn't "steal" his music from black culture outright (perhaps we can attribute that deed to Sam Phillips), but I think in so far as Holly's article is concerned, she is on pretty solid ground.
4 - Henry Bergson
Mr. Price, your Elvis history is way off. There were 5 Sun singles, making 10 total songs, and of course none of them were written by Elvis.
The singles were:
That's All Right, Mama/Blue Moon of Ky
Good Rockin Tonight/I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine
Milkcow Blues Boogie/You're A Heartbreaker
Baby Let's Play House/I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone
I Forgot To Remember To Forget/Mystery Train
And BTW lots of people can name every Sun Record Elvis ever made (there are only about 20).
5 - bryan price
oops. how embarrassing. factually i was way off, i tend to speak, or write, before I think. and i sounded pompous. but the spirit of what i said is still correct: elvis did make his start by covering black artists.
sorry in advance to all elvis fans and rock historians.
6 - Temple Stark
Applause for the article. Had strong opinions, but didn't force them. Didn't lie, twist or cover up to make your points.
Had a pleasing narrative, too, without trying to kill the reader by bringing in every example.
Thank you. Temple
7 - Marcia L. Neil
How embarassing -- the entertainment industry does not know [or care about?] the difference between an 'album theme' and performer(s)' identity. Multiple themes are listed in the article above -- 'Elvis Presley', 'Smokey Robinson', 'James Brown', 'The Mamas and the Papas', 'Chuck Berry', 'Little Richard', etc.. Specific people both living and dead inspired the themes, and some of those are hauled onto stage to perform often without respite.
8 - Connie Phillips
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9 - Beau Bradlee
"Linda Ronstadt’s 1975 cover of it is another thing altogether. It’s as if she’s determined to show off her powerful vocal cords by yelling every chorus at top volume..."
I don't even think you listened to that song. There's no yelling in that song at all.
10 - Pico
Holly Hughes articles are fast becoming a "must-read" for me. In them I find old familiar songs presented in a new perspective I haven't thought of before. This article is no different in that regard.
The part of your article that got the heartiest nods from me are the Beatles paragraphs. Lennon has been described so much as the dreamer/tortured soul/wear-his-heart-on-his-sleeve type so danged much that people have forgotten what a phenomenal rock 'n' roll singer he was. Maybe the best of all time. Even more forgotten are his interpretive skills (because he didn't cover songs much once the Beatles took off), which as you pointed out were outstanding right from the beginning. "Stand By Me" from his solo period showed that he still had the goods more than ten years later.
As for The Rolling Stones...I just knew you were going to mention "Just My Imagination" from Some Girls, but you didn't. IMO the Stones did that Motown cover better than their earlier attempts. They didn't try to emulate the Temptations original which would have been disastrous; they just made it a typical bloozy Stones song instead.
11 - Holly Hughes
Beau, believe me, I've listened to that Linda Ronstadt track hundreds of times over the years (on cassette -- that's how long ago I bought it). I even heard her sing it live in 1975, and I could see the vocal cords straining. "Yelling" may mean something different to you than it does to me, but she definitely punched up the volume on the "whoahs" and "need you's".
Many of Ronstadt's early 70s hits I knew first from her versions, which I adored. Then I eventually heard the originals, and often they were richer and more subtle than her interpretations. (I will grant you this: Linda's "Desperado" was the best there ever was.) Her voice is fantastic, but there's more to singing than just having range and color and timbre. She has grown as a interpreter over the years, however -- she's one of those artists who has only improved with age.
12 - Holly Hughes
And Pico -- dang, it didn't even occur to me to think of "Just My Imagination" as a Motown cover -- that's how much the Stones re-invented it. To compare that to the Temptations would be apples to oranges fer sure...
13 - Vern Halen
" It’s Only Rock and Roll was the beginning of the end for the Stones (could be because it was the last album Mick Taylor played on). That was the moment when they admitted they were turning into cultural artifacts instead of real artists, but they still had a little irony about themselves. "
This is the usual truism as it applies to the Stones' career, but I'll play debbil's advocate in favor of this album and their version of Ain't Too Proud to Beg in particular. I think the Stones do indeed reinterpret it in a meaningful way - the original wouldn't have appealed to a teenage metalhead like I myself was back in the day.
The track divests itself of a lot of soul & r&b roots and becomes not just a rock 'n' roll song, but a rock song - a subtle yet crucial difference. It's Only RnR is the Stones coming to grips with the fact that their music was not that of the black Americans they aped when they started out - instead, it was going to become their own, whatever that was meant to be.
14 - Holly Hughes
Interesting perspective, Vern. I agree that in the context of this album (which happens to be my personal favorite Stones album, for completely subjective reasons) "Ain't Too Proud To Beg" sounds great. The guitar work in the break alone makes the whole thing worth it.
Still, I don't think it serves the song as well as the original recording does. It is, after all, a persuasion song -- and Jagger's delivery is more bullying than persuasive. Listen to how he snarls out "love so deep in the pit of my heart". He's not begging, he's bragging. He'd never stop me from walking out that door.
15 - Vern Halen
I thought it was better than them dredging up such schlock as "Can I Get a Witness" anyways.
Actually, my fave band for being unable to play the subtleties of Afro-American based music is the WHO - listen to their totally unfunky, unsoulful, unAmerican (black or white) versions of hits like the Isley's Shout. Maximum r&b indeed.
And one final stray thought - Glen Campbell did a surprisingly decent version of "Dock of the Bay." Go fig.
16 - funkbrother
I wonder if any of you could tell me the names of any of the muscicians that played on the motown records.
The thing is that there were white people who were playing on these records. For example Bob Babbitt. Back in the day if you couldn't imitate his style of playing you just did not work in the R&B industry back then.
There is something to be said when a white man can play black music with such soul that he is considered the best and all others must be able to emulate his style.
However, I think that alot of you miss the point of music entirely. Music, is an expression of what is in the soul. Now the last time I checked the soul had no color. Neither black nor white.
There are those who can play music and sing in such a way that we feel what they feel. Then there are those that just can't
The point I am trying to make is that Motwn Records didn't care if you were black or white.
They just cared that you could play. That is what music is all about.
17 - Willy van der Hurk
Elvis was a typical splendid artist who mixed all
kind of music in his repertoire so my opinion is
he was singing damned good American music
Willy van der Hurk
Bandleader from the band: the "inCrowd" from the Netherlands/Europe
18 - Pol vanRhee
There just can't be better Motown covers than done by The (English) Beat. Tracks of My Tears is one of those amazing songs.
Pol