Recently reflecting rather gleefully on the second half of my first century, I felt exactly one twinge of regret. The Motown era is over.
Of course, it’s been over for some time. Diana Ross is now officially deranged. Smokey Robinson seems to have gone the Vegas route, and the Miracles are no more. The Four Tops are no longer four, or on top. Stevie Wonder flashes his brilliance about once every couple of years. And the Jackson 5–well, it’s now basically the Jackson 1, and his nose is missing.
Plus, I spent last year in the company of some very precocious 7th and 8th graders who not only didn’t know what “records” were, but had never heard of Motown. Am I the only one who believes that “My Girl” and “Tears of a Clown” should be a part of every budding teen’s curriculum?
Anyways, as far as I’m concerned, the Temptations were Motown. Check out the video…isn’t it the coolest, slickest, sexiest thing you’ve seen in years? Those handsome lads in sharkskin were my introduction to poetry. Their songs were lyrical, their songs told the bestest boy-meet-girl-boy-loses-girl-boy-begs-relentlessly stories, their songs were where I first learned that life could sound pretty damned good.
But the modern-day Temps, full of imposters and also-rans, are simply a hollow whisper of the original. From left to right in the opening moment of the YouTube clip–Melvin Franklin, the bassman, was the most recent to die, of heart failure; Eddie Kendricks succumbed to lung cancer; Otis Williams is the only original Temp still alive; Paul Williams committed suicide and David Ruffin died in a Philly crack house. Damn.
So what kind of a Motown baby am I? Obsessed. I”m madly obsessed with Otis Williams, because he’s all that’s left, because he represents a time when everything was starkly choreographed and poured into passionate little stanzas. Love, passion, deceit, heartbreak, all of it trapped in a glistening black disc, released by the plop of a needle, and played over and over again. And a little colored girl on the west side of Chicago listened, and felt the song in everything.
I want to grab hold to the moment that began this, the moment when I felt that poetry could tell it all. That’s why I’m the gal at the jukebox, wailing every Motown song long and aloud, trying to hold onto something that slipping away.
Am I crazy? Is it just me?
You aren’t crazy, I miss them too, and I especially miss David Ruffin’s lead vocals. The interesting thing about their lyrics is that most of their songs were written by Smokey Robinson, who Bob Dylan claimed was the best American poet.
One of the best musical moments of my life was getting to see them in Las Vegas in the early 70’s. By then, David Ruffin was no longer singing with the Temptations, but that didn’t matter, they were still great.
I was the odd-ball white girl in San Francisco, listening to Motown records when all my friends were listening to the Beatles. The Temptations sang my kind of music: Smooth, sweet and sexy. The kind of music that you can dance to, dream to and feel that someone out there knows your true heart. Thanks for the video clip, you took me back to my more innocent self.
I have a really hard time believing that those kids had never heard of records, because it makes them so shockingly ignorant of the culture that surrounds them: the cuttingest of the edge in hip hop and electronic dance music still uses records and turntables regularly, and the dj with his/her turntables and records has become a major icon in our culture. A seismic shift happened several years ago, when teenagers in California began buying turntables more than they did electric guitars. And yet these “precocious” kids don’t know what records are? P’shaw. Even if they have no money, they’ve seen a TV ad once or twice in their lives, haven’t they? When McDonald’s ads have djs and turntables in them, you know it’s taken over the culture. (And I’m loving it.) As usual, the genius of afro-american culture was way ahead of the curve in recognizing the possibilities and using them brilliantly (for popular culture rather than the avant-garde).