Don't Mess With Bill, Marvelettes (1965)

Yesterday I received a cryptic message from my friend Barry - almost like a cry in the wilderness! - asking for a Marvelettes song. His wish is my command.

Motown, which turns 50 this month, had a hierarchy for its artists, and the A-list got most of the attention, a list that was more or less constructed on the basis of Berry Gordy's sense of who had the greatest crossover potential into the largely white pop charts. With that in mind, consider the "marvelous" Marvelettes, who were second tier at best, but still given songs such as the sultry, even menacing, classic Don't Mess With Bill. Written and produced by the master, Smokey Robinson, with uber-funk rhythm provided by the man some called the greatest bass player who ever lived, James Jamerson, this song reaches out and hooks you from the first note.

First, there's that priceless, take-no-prisoners title. On that basis alone, it was a single destined for the charts. But that aside, the song stands out in its directness, its absence of sugar-coating.

Under the heading of "where's the justice?" I'm wondering why the group who delivered Motown's first-ever #1 hit and put the company on the map - Please Mr. Postman, the week of December 11, 1961 - ended up on that second tier. The group had two equally strong lead singers - Wanda Young Rogers and Gladys Horton (it's Young on Don't Mess With Bill, Rogers on Postman) - and seemingly as much star power as any of the other girl groups. Everything I've been able to find on this indicates there were a lot of internal politics and competition between them and the Supremes, who were viewed as more refined than the Marvelettes and thus easier to groom for pop stardom. (They hailed from a rural area outside of Detroit.) One source even reveals that the Marvelettes declined to record Baby Love in 1964, for what reasons I do not know.

Although the Rock Hall has not seen fit to recognize their seminal influence (eligible since 1986, they've never even been considered, according to futurerockhall.com, a fascinating repository of commentary on the decisionmaking of the Rock Hall powers-that-be), they were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2004.

A curious related YouTube find is a fellow from the UK who channels Jamerson, and demonstrates the bassline in numerous videos of Jamerson signature songs, including this one. He has many appreciative fans who can't get over his mastery of Jamerson's improvisatory style, which involved plucking the strings with only the index finger of his right hand while adding embellishments that no one had previously heard.

As Don Was says in the Standing in the Shadows of Motown documentary, "You have to be absolutely fearless to play those notes in that place and yet be responsible for the bottom of the groove like that." Although the public knew little about him or any of the other Funk Brothers until the documentary was released, his work inspired many bassists who came after him including Paul McCartney, who, in an interview with Bass Guitar magazine, called Jamerson his "hero," because he was "so good and melodic."

Now go sway to Don't Mess With Bill.

Cool Jerk, Capitols (1966)

We all looked pretty goofy when we danced in the 60s, and never goofier than when we got down to the fabulous soul ditty Cool Jerk by the Capitols. But who cared - this song was pure kinetic energy that converted instantly to joy - which can happen when you're, as the song said, cookin' and smokin.'

The person we have to thank for this is Ollie McLaughlin, one disc jockey and record producer who refused to be dwarfed by the Motown juggernaut. Based outside of Detroit in Ann Arbor, not exactly an urban hotbed, McLaughlin started three record labels, named them after his daughters Karen, Carla and Moira, and started to turn out and promote artists that captured the attention of young America, including Del Shannon and Barbara Lewis.

Motown's house band, the Funk Brothers, were known to moonlight, and if the instrumental arrangement of Cool Jerk sounds vaguely familiar, it's because some of the Funk Brothers were serving it up in their spare time. That's Bob Babbitt on bass, Johnny Griffith on piano and Eddie Willis on guitar, and it was as tasty as tasty could be. The Capitols themselves were singer and drummer Sam George, guitarist Donald Storball (who wrote the song), and keyboardist Richard McDougall.

Nothing much happened for the Capitols after Cool Jerk, and I don't recall ever seeing them even perform it anywhere. However, Parliament/Funkadelic's Bootsy Collins gives it all he's got with the surviving Funk Brothers in their documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown. Catch it if you can.

Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart, Reflections (1966, 1967), The Supremes

It's taken me this long to
narrow down the Supremes' music catalogue to just two songs that I feel represent Diana Ross, Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson at their absolute pinnacle.

Each of these songs, Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart, and Reflections, showcases the Supremes in their finest moments. And I think I selected these in the end because neither of them is from the usual mold from which, let's face it, so many of their songs were cast.

No Holland-Dozier-Holland composition was ever arranged into a sassier and more hard-driving record than Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart ... it exudes sensual energy of the most life-affirming kind. The blending of Ross' wail with Ballard's and Wilson's surging backing ooh-ooh-oohs puts me into the same frenzy 42 years later as it did as a teenager. The Funk Brothers' Benny Benjamin's 4/4 stomp alone ensures its place in the pantheon of kinetic history and what's up with Jack Ashford on the tinkling vibes? It just doesn't get any better than this, and it was never duplicated, unlike so many of the other carbon-copied hits. Inexplicably, one of the few Supremes hits not to chart at #1.

Reflections was the Supremes grown up and responding to shifting musical trends. Opening with an oscillator that led to its being pegged "psychedelic soul," it was just a beautiful song and an indication of what the girls could have done together if Berry Gordy had left well enough alone. It will forever symbolize the Supremes on the cusp of demise, being the first song on which Gordy put Ross on a pedestal and gave her top billing, and the last on which Ballard appeared. I'll admit its place in my heart is in part secured because of its inspired "casting" as the opening theme song of China Beach, one of the best ensemble TV shows ever made on any subject and certainly on war, in this instance the Vietnam war. The character of Colleen McMurphy, for me, was every bit as influential as that of Mary Richards in embodying young women's stories at that time in our evolution.

But in terms of the Supremes' story, much has already been written: Three close friends from the Detroit projects, in their own girl group called the Primettes (a sister act to the Primes which, featuring Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams, was the Temptations precursor group), busting out with the knowledge that they had something special to offer as performers and dreaming of being discovered by Motown. Ross's lesser, shrill, voice but greater capacity for showbiz exploitation eclipsing the possibilities for powerful tenor Ballard and alto Wilson (both of whom could also sing lead more than competently) and setting up a chain of circumstances that led to Ballard being fired from the group in 1967, losing a lawsuit against Motown over that dismissal and ultimately dying, destitute, of a heart attack at the age of 32. And on and on ... it's a great American success story turned turbulent and tragic ... ambition gone awry. My generation was lucky to bask in it while it was good.

Ain't No Mountain High Enough, Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell (1967)

And speaking of duets ... I've been wrestling for weeks now over which Marvin Gaye song to include here. There were so many, and he was such a gifted, though tormented, soul. The obvious choice is What's Going On, which is anthemic and for the ages, but something keeps calling me back to Ain't No Mountain High Enough.

And I know the reason for it. In any video you see of Marvin singing this Nick Ashford-Valerie Simpson classic with his beloved Tammi Terrell, you see a man who was, at least for those moments, the personification of happy. I remember seeing this video on a Motown retrospective and being overwhelmed by the joy emanating out of these two doomed people. What came through couldn't be faked. See it again in this video.

So in this instance, context might not be the deciding factor for me. At the time it was released, no one was the wiser; it was just a great love song with a killer beat served up by the Funk Brothers' Uriel Jones, sung, seemingly effortlessly, by two of Motown's many uber-talented artists.

It's only when you know that Tammi collapsed in Marvin's arms during a performance later this same year, never to perform again and dying of a brain tumor in 1970 at the age of 24 ... and that Marvin was so heartbroken he didn't perform live again for several years ... and that Marvin himself, though he would go on to further greatness after his 20-year Motown contract ended and he went out on his own, would die violently at the age of 44 ... it's only when you know all of these things that this song becomes more precious.

Compounding the tragedy is that Marvin's death was at the hands of his father, a Pentecostal preacher who as much as anyone was the catalyst for Marvin's career - at the age of 5, he sang at one of his father's religious meetings where everyone present knew this was a prodigy through whom a spiritual force flowed that would take him places.

Although the exact nature of Marvin and Tammi's relationship has never been completely established and was purported by some to be entirely platonic, regardless, they had a singular alchemy that transformed a simple Motown song into incandescence.

I Can't Get Next to You, The Temptations (1969)

I wasn't planning on this song today, but it came on the radio while I was driving to work, and got me all stirred up. A group singular for its out-of-this-world vocal stylings and ultra smooth choreography, the Temptations were entertainers down to their DNA, and I wasn't prepared for how happy it was going to make me to hear them today.

The "Tempts" sometimes referred to themselves as "five lead vocalists," and I Can't Get Next to You is a sterling example of this principle in action. Always grittier, edgier and funkier than their Motown brethren, the Four Tops, here each of the Temptations chimes in with successive lines of the song's verses, showcasing their crazily diverse and spectacular singing voices, as well as their exuberant showmanship. And of course underpinning the whole affair are the Funk Brothers, providing the instrumental fundamentals.

I don't know what it says about the schizoid nature of the culture of the time that, when this song was #1 on the Billboard pop charts, 3 of the other top five songs were by Bobby Sherman, Oliver and the Archies. (The other was Sly & the Family Stone, which Temptations producer Norman Whitfield was reportedly attempting to emulate.)

In any event, while psychedelic influences were chipping away at the relevance of other Motown artists, the Temptations - with former Contour Dennis Edwards replacing the departing David Ruffin - managed to deliver red-hot hits (Cloud Nine, Ball of Confusion, et al) one after the other during the latter part of the 60s, of which this one is my favorite.

Heat Wave, Martha and the Vandellas (1963)

It's not so much irony as justice that, on the first Motown song I'm selecting, the first 29 seconds featured neither Martha nor the Vandellas, but rather the funky-fabulous backbeat and stylings of the then-uncredited Motown house band we only now know to be the Funk Brothers. Just try to remain inert in the face of drummer "Pistol" Allen's four on the floor drum rhythms. (See Allen's obituary in the Independent for some priceless background on him and life as a session musician under Berry Gordy.) It can't be done!

Any Motown enthusiast who hasn't seen the documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown is missing a real treat; it's a labor of love by writer Allan Slutsky and director Paul Justman, who dedicated themselves to telling the story of "this unheralded group of musicians (who) had played on more number one hits than the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, Elvis and the Beatles combined - which makes them the greatest hit machine in the history of popular music."

Heat Wave was one of the first Motown songs to chart big, and deservedly so. Martha Reeves had worked for peanuts as a secretary at Motown hoping for the day when she could bust out into the limelight with her gritty, ebullient take on life and love. Far less sugar-coated and more soulful than most of the other girl groups, Martha and the Vandellas put all the cards on the table: "is this the way love's supposed to be ... it's like a heatwave burning in my heart ... can't keep from crying ... it's tearing me apart."

According to Gerri Hirshey's seminal history of soul music, "Nowhere to Run," the entire Heat Wave album was cut in a few hours. Says Reeves, "We flew in from Baltimore after doing five shows. We got in around midnight and went right into the studio. Recorded that whole album, then did three songs, backup, for Marvin Gaye. We all had to get shots for our throats because they were suffering from overuse. Understand, I'm not complaining. If I were that age, and the circumstances were the same, I'd gladly do it again. You know how it is. You do stupid, dangerous things when you're really in love. And if you're swept away by it, you don't stop for one minute to think. You say, 'Go get it, girl,' and you don't look back."