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    16 views8 pages

    Motown Chapter - The Marvelettes

    Uploaded by

    carrerdelapoesia 14

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    of 8
    The Marvelettes \ eo “Please, Mr. Postman” 5 8 Wy Composed: 1961 ‘What makes the sound of a musical style so immediately recognizable? The sound known as “Motown” is built on the basic elements of timbre, harmony, and texture, mphisten to His First o- © Timbre Harmony "Liston for hand-claps. Pay attention to the ‘Do you recognize the basic, repeating ‘Do any sections repeat? Do you hear slight tone quality of the backup vocal quartet. ‘chord progression? variations in those sections? How does the j eee song end? ‘the overall sound? In 1961, the rhythm and blues label Tamia Motown badly needed a new hit. Nearly a year hhad passed since Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ “Shop Around” had reached number one on the R&B charts, which tracked music played on black radio stations for a mostly black audi- ence. And then five high-school girls from Inkster, a suburb of Detroit—Gladys Horton, Katherine Anderson, Juanita Cowart, Georgeanna Tillman, and Wanda Young—recorded “Please, Mr. Postman” and provided that hit. Calling themselves the Marvelettes, their single reached the top of both the R&B charts and the pop charts (tracking a mostly white audience), 2 response that indicated success that crossed conventional boundaries of race and audience. The song's gold-record sales assured the continuation of “Motown,” as the label was more commonly known, and established the Marvelettes among its early stars “Please, Mr. Postman” was released during a period in music history caught between the carly rock ‘n’ roll innovations of the mid-1950s and the popular-music revolution of 1964 brought about by four young men from Liverpool. In the years before this “British Invasion,” as the Beatles” success in America became known, black rhythm and blues ensembles such as the Coasters and the Shirelles reached new audiences by melding rhythmically innovative pop songs ‘with blues idioms. Motown took advantage of the burgeoning popularity of R&B, cultivating its danceable grooves into an instantly recognizable musical style, By the mid-1960s, the Motown sound hd evolved into the mature, pop sounds of groups like Diana Ross and the Supremes, and the Temptations (see “The Making of ‘Please, Mr. Postman,” page 478), and Motown had become & major contributor to American popular music. Form LEARN MORE on wwuw.mymusiclab.com Chapter Objectives 475 Recordings made for the Motown label had an instantly recognizable, highly polished @ Sound. The way the instruments were played and mixed in the studio produced a timbral sheen far different than the gritter, ougher sounds coming out of other R&B labels atthe time. By the ‘mid-1960s, Motown had made solid inroads into popular music, and its musical arrangements routinely featured strings and homs (especially extended saxophone solos); lots of rhythmic sound effects from claps, snaps, and tambourines; and a tight rhythmic groove from the bass and

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