One of the (many) cliches about Motown is that Berry Gordy based his hit machine on the assembly lines of Detroit. Right idea, but wrong location: The assembly line that Gordy based Motown on wasn't in Michigan, it was in California.
Gordy's brilliance was in taking the assembly line method that the Hollywood studio system created in the 1920s and '30s and adapting it to black music. The result was an independent record label with its own talent scouts, dance instructors, photographers, and as Eric Olsen once wrote:
To ease his (black) artist's segue into the (white) world of television appearances and posh night clubs, Gordy established the Artist Development Department, which included a vocal coach, choreographer Cholly Atkins, live music director Maurice King, and an etiquette/style instructor. Some blossomed and some chafed under Gordy's "I'll take care of you" paternalistic eye. Mary Wells left after her first contract expired in 1964, while Smokey lasted until the '90s.But the most important part of Motown's assembly line was Gordy's songwriters and musicians:
As Motown came to dominate the charts in the mid-'60s, there came to be something called a "Motown sound." This sound can be traced to the writers: Gordy, Robinson, Norman Whitfield, H-D-H; the artists; engineer Lawrence Horn; and to the band - the fabled Funk Brothers - who backed up most of the artists recorded at Hitsville. The prototypical lineup was Benny Benjamin on drums, James Jamerson on bass, Earl Van Dyke on keyboards, James Giddons on percussion, and Robert White or Joe Messina on guitar.They eventually became informally known as the Funk Brothers. Like many of the men who toiled on the assembly lines of Hollywood during its golden years, they created magic, but were were hardly known at all, until Allan Slutsky entered the picture. Slutsky, a pit orchestra musician, graduate of the Berklee College of Music, and author of instructional books for guitarists and bassists, wrote Standing in the Shadows of Motown: The Life and Music of Legendary Bassist James Jamerson, a book designed to allow musicians to learn Jamerson's classic basslines, and some background about the man who recorded them. Released in 1989, it won the prestigeous Ralph J. Gleason Award from Rolling Stone. Last year, (in what surely must be a first) his technique book was made into an astonshing documentary, finally allowing the Funk Brothers the credit they so richly deserved. Last month it was released on DVD, with 5.1 sound, an optional commentary track by Slutsky and Paul Justman, the film's producer/director, and lots of other ancillary material designed to bring the viewer closer to the Funk Brothers. But it took 11 years of struggle before the film could be made.
Article comments
1 - Philip Walker
I read that Allan slutsky was writing a biography of Junior Walker - is this true.
Please let me know
Regards
2 - Mac Diva
Barry Gordy did work on a car assembly line in Detroit briefly. It was sometime between his prize fighting career and when he penned his first hit for good friend Jackie Wilson.
I think the Motown assembly line myth is somewhat cliched. There is too much variation in how Motown acts sound for it to be really true. Phil Spector's wall of sound is more formulaic. As was Philadelphia International Records' sound later. What Gordy did was organize. He made acts fit a fairly rigid schedule of recording and performing. Some of the best, such as Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, rebelled. They were not suited to regimentation.
The last word I had on the Funk Brothers was that they have fallen out with their 'discoverers,' i.e., the men who brought them out of obscurity. Litigation was in progress.