>I've deferred on my response to this as I've been trying to find an old
>article clipping in which Berry talks about his beginnings and how he
>credits Chess, Stax (and others) as the impetous for his success.
I think you'll find that the label Gordy Berry would credit most for
inspiring him was Vee Jay--which was, after all, black-owned and operated
and did produce crossover pop hits. (Motown eventually put out an
excellent compilation on Motown called "Hits from the Legendary Vee Jay
Records" with Betty Everett and Jerry Butler and Jimmy Reed and Dee Clark
and Roscoe Gordon and the Dells and Bob&Earl--talk about a label Elvis
knew!...not to speak of that little British import act the Beatles they
quietly introduced.)
>
>Stax was gritty and Motown was pretty. I love both, except I think Stewart
>allowed more artistic freedom, whereas I've heard that Gordy flaunted the
>whip with his artists. Much good music came out of Motown, but still I have
>to wonder how much of it was "manufactured" for top 40 sake?
>Tera
Well, it was ALL manufactured to get to Top 40 if it could! And they both
had distinctive sounds, after all. But Motown's ambition was to do
something else--to produce acts that could break through to take in he big
bucks and yes respect appearing live anywhere--including Las Vegas, night
clubs, movies, television--none of which had very much been possible. You
could say that Motown wasjust doing more than Stax-Volt to "make it with
the white folks"--but then, I suppose you'd have to say the same thing
about Col. Parker and Elvis--who wanted excatly the same Big Time show biz
goals!
As for Stax=grit and Motown=pretty--as a longtime fan of both, I'd have to
say that this rounds out their depth and breadth too much. Martha and the
VDs pretty not gritty? The Temptations? (And what David no doubt likes
about those Philly folks is that crossing of gritty and pretty.)
Maybe what us Stax supporters would say is that it's definitely the most
country of the three! Though there wer other southern soul labels that
could do that too, at this they were unsurpassed. And when these hard soul
artists turn to aaaan outright country lyric, it never seems a stretch.
The Supremes sing Country? Well they did--but they never thought to get
David's advice on picking the right Countripolitan records to play with...
See, that might have been ineteresting!
Barry
