Hitsville

Berry Gordy Jr founded Motown Records on January 12, 1959, in downtown Detroit, aka Motor City and this was several months after he founded Tamla Records.  Motown became the largest Black-owned company in the United States in the 1960s and it ended up changing the culture in America by creating a voice for African American people so they could deliver their messages through music.  Motown saw the Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Temptations, Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Four Tops, the Jackson 5, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye who all ruled the music scene.  Motown produced 53 #1 songs when Berry Gordy owned and ran the business from 1959 to 1988 including ‘Endless Love’, ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’, ‘I’ll Be There’, ‘Baby Love’, ‘All Night Long (All Night)’, Upside Down, ‘I Just Called To Say I Love You’, ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’. ‘War’, ‘Where Did Our Love Go’, ‘Stop! In the Name of Love’, ‘I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)’, ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There’, ‘The Tears of a Clown’, ‘Come See About Me’, ‘I Hear A Symphony’, ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’, ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’, ‘Love Child’, ‘I Can’t Get Next To You’, ‘Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)’. ‘Let’s Get It On’, ‘Three Times a Lady’, ‘My Guy’, ‘My Girl’, ‘Please Mr. Postman’, ‘(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave’, and 25 other songs that dominated the charts for more than a decade.  Hall of Fame songwriters Holland-Dozier-Holland composed 25 of those #1 hit singles and the talented Funk Brothers created the label’s distinctive sound.

Last week we had Name That Tune where the theme was to find songs with recognizable intros suggested by Clive from Take It Easy.  This week the theme is to find Motown songs.  Take some time to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this music challenge, and even better, read as many of them as you can as you will probably find many enjoyable songs and it is quite possibly that you will learn a thing or two.  Share your music with others and post a video, try do some research and let everyone know something about the song that you post.  Tell everyone why you like the song, whether it was a hit, or what you think the song is about.  Show the lyrics, let’s all listen to our favorite songs and explore some new music.  Try to find a song that fits the theme, then write your post and create a pingback, or you can just place your link in the comments section.

Suggestions
• Try to use the prompt words or at least conform to a general theme, as you see it.  If the song you select does not meet the criteria, then please explain why you chose this song.
• It would be good if you could post the lyrics to the song of your choice, as this is helpful for the people that want to follow along with the music.
• Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due. It would also be a good idea to give credit to the singer and the band associated with your song.
• Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be, but please try not to include too many videos as that just makes it take longer to look at all of the other posts.
• Link to the YouTube video, or you can pull it into your post, so others can listen to the song.
• Ping back to this post or place your link in the comments section below.
• Read at least one other person’s blog, so we can all share new and fantastic music and create amazing new blogging friends in the process.
• Feel free to suggest future prompts.
• Have fun and enjoy the music.

This week I will be writing about The Supremes song ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’, and next week, I will be writing about the song ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ by Joy Division.  The upcoming prompts will be:
December 4, 2022 – Indie Rock or Indie Pop songs
December 11, 2022 – Power Pop songs
December 18, 2022 – Mersey Beat, or Mersey Sound or a band from Surrey or Liverpool will also work
December 25, 2022 – Punk songs