Motown


  • When Michael Jackson Met Bob Marley

    In the annals of music history, few moments shimmer with the kind of star-studded, genre-blending brilliance as the day when the future King of Pop met the Reggae Revolutionary. Picture this: a sunny day in Kingston, Jamaica, 1975, a setting so ripe for a musical crossover, it could have been scripted in Hollywood. Yet, this…

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  • The Jackson 5 on “American Bandstand”: When Five Brothers from Gary, Indiana, Became America’s Favorite Siblings

    On the electrifying day of February 21, 1970, the Jackson 5 stormed โ€œAmerican Bandstand,โ€ forever changing the landscape of pop music. This debut wasnโ€™t just a performance; it was a revelation. Led by the prodigious Michael Jackson, the groupโ€™s entrance onto the national stage was a high-octane spectacle that left audiences spellbound and set the…

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  • MoFiโ€™s 40th Anniversary Edition of Michael Jacksonโ€™s Thriller REVIEWED

    When MoFi offered to send me an advanced promo for one of the most famous albums of all time, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity and thrill of revisiting a classic forty years after its initial release.

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  • Diving into Disco, Part 7 โ€” Psychedelic Soul

    The Vietnam War and social upheavalโ€ฆ The times they were (still) aโ€™changinโ€™

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  • Diving into Disco, Part 6 โ€” Psychedelics and Funkydelics

    By 1967, the Motor City is still monopolizing the music charts and airwaves, cruising full speed ahead, rivaled only by Britain’s Fab Four. But thereโ€™s turbulence and static on the horizon stemming from a strong current blowing from the West Coast, along with inner tensions within Hitsville U.S.A., a.k.a. Motown Records.These combined factors would eventually…

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  • Diving into Disco, Part 5 โ€” Going to a Go-Go

    While the Supremes, with the support of their writing and producing team of Lamont Dozier and brothers Brian and Eddie Holland, a.k.a. H-D-H, continued their winning streak with “I Hear a Symphony” in October, 1965, and “My World Is Empty Without You” in December of the same year, squeezed in between those two months, in…

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  • Blue Note Records Classic Vinyl Reissue Seriesโ€”Is the word โ€œaudiophileโ€ back in style?

    Now that LPs are once again the biggest selling form of physical media, industry players large and small are getting into the LP game. Waiting times of nine months or more are now common at LP pressings plants. New artists who are smart about managing their careers routinely produce many limited-edition LPs in various colors.…

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  • A Tribute to the First Lady of Love, Donna Summer (1948-2012), Queen of Disco, Pt 2

    Read Part 1 here โ€œOnce upon a time, there was a girlโ€โ€ฆ and once upon a time there was a singer named Donna Summer and a writer-producer duo by the name of Moroder-Bellotte who, working together, and having already pushed the boundaries of the disco genre, would do so again, this time with the album…

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  • A Tribute to the First Lady of Love, Donna Summer (1948-2012), Queen of Disco, Pt 1

    Back in 1967, Aretha Franklin won theย respectย of the public and press, not to mention her musical peers, who crowned her Queen of Soul or Lady Soul. As disco began to supplant soul in the mid-seventies, two women each sought to become successor to Arethaโ€™s throne: glorious Gloria Gaynor and diva-esque Donna Summer. The former got…

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  • Diving into Disco, Part 3 โ€” The Motown years

    Blues migrated towards the urban centres, along its way electrifying guitars and gigs, as black musicians fleeing southern racial segregation strived for more economic opportunities and a better life in places like Detroit, Chicago, and New York City.

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  • I am not an audiophile

    I am not an audiophile, or an expert on music. I donโ€™t like being labelled. But I do love most musical genres. I fell in love with music when I was nine. โ€œThatโ€™s a young age to fall in love for the first time!โ€ I hear some of you saying. It is. But by nine…

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