Celebrating 50 years of Motown music

-- As a teenager, J. Plunky Branch sang Motown songs around the house. He heard them throughout high school, on dates and at school dances.

During his senior year, "What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)" by Junior Walker was his primary party song. But the influence the Motown saxophonist had on Branch lasted long after the record stopped playing.

"I'm doing today what he did, being a saxophonist who sings," said Branch, a staple on the Richmond jazz scene who recently completed a week of touring in France. "He had a profound effect on me."

Motown Record Corp., the Detroit-based record label famously founded by Berry Gordy Jr. with an $800 loan from his family in its original incarnation, Tamla Record Co., celebrates its 50th anniversary tomorrow.

Gordy's career skipped from working in his father's plastering business to serving in the Korean War to writing songs for a fledgling singer named Jackie Wilson ("Lonely Teardrops") to steering Motown into a musical dynasty.

The sheer output of the Motown roster, which included such now-pedigreed names as Gladys Knight & the Pips, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, The Supremes, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder and the Jackson 5, is staggering -- 192 No. 1 hits, with 28 between 1961-71.

But perhaps most important was the significance of Motown in a racial context.

It was the first record label owned by an African-American that featured primarily African-American artists who, despite any racial tensions of the times, crossed their soul-based music onto pop charts previously dominated by white artists such as Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson.

"I used to say that there were three large influences on black music from the'60s: James Brown, Sly Stone and Motown as a label," Branch said. "It was a black enterprise. It went beyond just the straight entertainment in that it schooled its artists in how to perform, how to conduct themselves, how to look. Probably the biggest thing that it did was to make black music respectable. Motown acts looked like ballroom performers."

In a December Vanity Fair opus reminiscing with Motown artists about the anniversary, Martha Reeves recalled how she and many of her labelmates were sent to Maxine Powell's charm school.

Powell, the head of the now-closed Maxine Powell Finishing and Modeling School, recalled in the story that, "Most of the artists were rude and crude and speaking the street language when I met them. Diana Ross and the Supremes . . . said they were sophisticated when they got to Motown, but that was not true; sophistication takes years, and young people are not sophisticated."

But for some listeners, the finesse wasn't as relevant as the distinctive melding of R&B and pop being brewed in the Detroit house at 2648 W. Grand Blvd. known as Hitsville U.S.A. -- Motown's administrative headquarters and recording studios.

"Back then, you had to be good," said Richmond saxophonist Johnny Houston. "You had your blues. You had your straight-ahead jazz. And it was just time for Motown to come in. It didn't have as much to do with the dressing.

"At one time, you had just female hits. Then male hits. Then quartet hits. [Motown] was just right for an era of time. And you know, you can bake a nice pound cake and say, 'I'm going to put some icing on it.' The icing might help, but it's the same cake and that cake has to be good."

Houston knows firsthand who some of the good ones were, having played with them when their tours would swing through Richmond from the early'60s through the early'80s.

Smokey Robinson & the Miracles and Gladys Knight & the Pips get a thumbs-up from Houston, but his favorite artist to perform with wasn't on the Motown roster, though he was an early participant in Gordy's songwriting career -- Jackie Wilson.

"He was one of the best entertainers that I ever played behind. And when I say best, he was as nice as he could be. Gene Chandler ["Duke of Earl" singer not on the Motown label] was the worst, with the worst attitude.

"A lot of these entertainers could sing, but they didn't know music. They didn't know what key to sing in, and a lot of times, they'd hit the stage and be a little intimidated and if they weren't getting any love from the audience, they'd blame it on the band. Jackie was a good singer, he knew what to do, so he wasn't ever intimidated by the audience."

The humble Houston, who has been playing since he was 11 and started his professional career shortly after leaving Armstrong High School, still performs with his band The Legends.

He doesn't play in Richmond too often, except for the bigger festivals -- "I feel kind of been there, did that," he said -- but does include plenty of Motown songs in his set when playing weddings and country clubs, mostly in the Washington and Williamsburg areas.

Even though the Motown label has undergone common industry moves such as hand-changing and artist-shuffling since Gordy sold his ownership stake in the mid-'80s to MCA, the record and TV distribution company, the label does still exist.

In the'90s, Motown was folded into the Universal Music Group, and the imprint supplied hits from the Temptations-like Boyz II Men, as well as soul singers Brian McKnight and Erykah Badu. Then, in 2005, Motown merged with Universal Records to form the Universal Motown Record Group, whose Motown arm carries, among others, Badu, India.Arie and, somewhat amusingly, new recruit Lindsay Lohan.

Of the "classic" Motown performers, only Stevie Wonder remains on the lineup.

But even a non-Motown artist can perpetuate the Motown sound.

Houston says he hears it now in the blue-eyed soul stylings of Robin Thicke, and music listeners don't have to strain much to hear the era's influence from the arrangements of Earth, Wind & Fire to the production and songs on Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" album.

"Motown is a romantic style and a feel and that's one reason why a lot of people latched onto it," Houston said. "Sometimes you can't put your finger on it, but you like it and you may not even know why you like it. That's what Motown had."
Contact Melissa Ruggieri at (804) 649-6120 or .