Kim Weston - “Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me A Little While)”
The Supremes - “Reflections”
The Supremes - “You Keep Me Hanging On”
Martha And The Vandellas - “Nowhere To Run”
Thelma Houston - “Don’t Leave Me This Way”
I’m crushed that I only had space for one Four Tops track (especially since I actually prefer them to The Temptations) and no room for The Marvelettes, The Velvelettes, The Jackson 5 or “Upside Down.” Still, that’s 10 solid songs I’d never tire of.
Now see, you can learn something from these kind of threads. I never knew R. Dean Taylor was on the Motown label. I don’t think I’ll be rearranging my list because of this revelation, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
“There’s A Ghost In My House” was actually cowritten by Taylor and Holland/Dozier/Holland, and “Gotta See Jane” was by Taylor and Brian Holland. Taylor also cowrote a number of songs for Motown artists, most famously “Love Child” for The Supremes. More info here.
Most of my favorite '60s and '70s R&B was not released on Motown. Clarence Carter was a Fame/Atlantic artist. Sam and Dave were on Stax, as were Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, and Booker T and the MGs.
Let’s never forget that Gordy was working for tremendous crossover appeal with his artists, their songs, and indeed his entire operation. And while that was a wonderful and successful thing to do at the time, it did mean that lots of that catalog frankly sounds more commercial and dated to me than lots of the Stax material, by contrast.
Also, if you’re uncertain about whether a certain singer or group was on the various Motown labels, you might want to consult Wikipedia’s list of Motown performers. It’s also great to look at in an “I didn’t know they were on Motown!” way (Kiki Dee, Teena Marie, Queen Latifah, Damian and Stephen Marley, and, uh, Lindsay Lohan???).
That’s only a partial list, though. There were some even more unlikely signings on Motown, such as the Italian progressive rock band Libra, who released two albums on the label (probably something to do with the connection between Motown and Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s Manticore label, which was issuing a bunch of Italian prog while using Motown as its distributor).
That’s a good point. My idea, though, was more to stem people from listing tracks by more famous acts like Aretha Franklin or Parliament. Artists of that caliber would definitely have been mentioned on a list of Motown performers, had they actually ever been signed to the label.
I basically agree with posters who say you can swap in dozens of songs and still end up with a list of great, memorable work.
I just can’t believe I am the first to mention **Tracks of My Tears ** - what a song!! And my favorite J5 is **The Love You Save ** (although Michael’s version of **Who’s Loving You ** is pretty darn great, too…).
Otherwise, lots of great stuff mentioned - I could argue a bit, but would rather enjoying the music popping into my head when I see the song titles and artists…
And Marvin Gaye’s Grapevine is still pretty much IT for me overall…