Forgive me if this has already been mentioned: I searched the archives hard
to avoid redundancy, but I could have missed something.
A new book may be of interest to members of this list:
Suzanne E. Smith, _Dancing in the Streets: Motown and the Cultural Politics
of Detroit_.
Many have pointed out the (musical, geographical, historical, political)
links betwen Detroit techno and Motown. For one quick example, here's
Stacey Pullen from _Sub Lumen_ (1995):
But still to this day, Detroit is not fully respected
all over the world for the music that is does. It was
the same with Motown - you had all these people doing
music back then, it was independently owned, it was the
Motown sound. Thats what we have now.
( http://www.hyperreal.org/music/lists/313/archives/313/313.9512.gz )
The importance of independent ownership--the fact that in the case of
Motown, members of the African American community owned the means of
production--is a major theme in Smith's book and has obviously been an
important concern for techno as well.
Whereas some claim that Motown, its name notwithstanding, could have
occured anywhere, Smith links it to the city of Detroit and the specific
cultural envornment there. Smith also reveals political implications of
Motown that have not received due attention. For instance, Motown's spoken
word label--Black Forum--recorded speeches, poems, etc. of MLK and other
black leaders.
Anyway, thought this might be of interest to some.
David Sheridan
