>You guys are all the same....sheesh! <g>Actually, there probably wouldn't >have been a Motown without Stax or Chess. But, Ms. Nixon wants to know if >any of us like Motown. Heck yes! From The Temptations to The >Supremes...very likeable music which got many of the record-buying public to >delve deeper into roots music: r&b, blues...etc. >Tera Well, I never really thought about it before, but it isn't very cool to like Motown--in the same way it is to like Stax, that is. I think Tera has a point here. Part of the reason for my greater appreciation for Stax, though, is because I'm constantly bombarded by those 60's Motown songs--either on radio, TV ads, background music in movies, VH-1 specials, etc.--in a way I'm not by the Stax stuff. And as for the No-Stax-No-Motown assertion, I don't know if that's true. The Stax machine is predated by the Satellite imprint, for sure, but until Atlantic picked up distribution in 1960 (following Carla Thomas' "Cause I Love You"), I don't know if many people outside of the South heard any Stax stuff. And that was also the same year that Berry Gordy hit with "Shop Around" (The Miracles on Tamla) and "Bye Bye Baby" (Mary Wells on Motown), so they seem to be concurrent enterprises. Anyway, I still stand by those late 60's/early 70's Temptations/Norman Whitfield records. These are still "dance records," but they add VERY heavy wah-wah guitars, funky-ass bass lines, aggressive polyrhythms, and some frighteningly honest lyrical moments. As cool as anything on Stax (IMO). As for country-soul, does anyone else listen to Joe Tex? And how about Messrs. Sahm and Yoakam? Or Ms. McKee's "You Gotta Sin" LP? Or, even Jon Spencer's collaboration with RL Burnside? I think all these records are knee-deep in the groove AND grits . . . Lance
