The Dells were one of the finest and longest-lived R&B vocal groups in history, and what's most amazing is that they did it with staying together as a group. They were one of the very few groups to successfully update their sound, finding their strongest commercial niche in the late '60s and '70s as a polished smooth soul harmony group. While their chart fortunes certainly raised over the years, they remained a viable act right up into the '90s, by which time, they had long achieved legendary status in the R&B community. The Dells were formed in 1953 in southern suburbs of Chicago, specifically the town of Harvey, Illinois, where all the members attended the same high school together.
Tamla Records was becoming something major when Gordy realized that there was not enough room to book everyone that wanted to record a label. Therefore the creation of Motown Records was born. Gordy started regretting taking the risk of starting Motown Records until “The Marvelettes” was rated number one on the pop charts which caused his business rate to soar. Motown was a hit! Motown was becoming one of the most known African American labeling records in America.
The era of 1920s represented vast developments in the music business. The phonograph record developed into the principal method of publicizing music, surpassing sales of sheet music. The music industry, ever powerful to learn new customs of making earnings, realized that record, sheet music and piano roll sales could all be tied together. This led to the creation of the “song plugger” which was a person who made sure his company’s music would be performed by bands and singers in hope of one of the tracks cracking the status of a hit. This marked that start of independent music companies, who were the companies that ended up grabbing musicians that the larger companies ignored; they weren’t scared to take chances on the so-called rejects.
Gordy’s main ambition was to produce the ‘Sound of Young America’, no matter what colour. The label’s releases gained popularity among both white and black Americans alike. From the song R.E.S.P.E.C.T by Aretha Franklin, it was a Civil Rights demand. Motown helped bridge a racial divide. African Americans wanted respect so they sang about it.
Marian Smith Holmes said, “Motown combined elements of blues, gospel, swing, and pop with a thumping backbeat for a new dance music that was instantly recognizable” (Smithsonian.com). The creation of what would become known as the “Motown sound” led to a whole new style of music that could only truly be classified as the motown sound. This music was a mixture of a little bit of everything, so it gave everyone an excuse to listen to it. This style of music made a way for white people to better understand black culture and to be able to adjust to it. Due to this change in the knowledge that white people knew, it led to a way for them to socialize and accept black people easier.
Girl groups and representative examples – Some of the first girl groups were the Supremes, Chantels, Ronettes, Shangri-Las, Shirelles, Crystals, Blossoms, Angels, and the Marvelettes. They were all popular during the 1950s and 1960s. Girl groups becoming popular marked the transition into recognizing women into the rock scene and offered a take on women’s views on sexuality and fashion. 2. Producers and representative examples – The Brill Building in New York was known as the production hub for girl groups in the 1950s and 1960s.
These key members were making history by working hard to do something that was never done before. They experimented, argued, failed, and succeeded in
The Jones Family Singers and Maceo Parker demonstrated a strong sense of African American “attitude and stance” (as termed by LeRoi Jones in his article “Blue People” in their performance that truly indicated the differences between their genres and the native more popular genres of today. In The Jones Family Singers performance, they interspersed modern gospel with elements of soul, funk, and even R&B. Their songs had an overwhelming positive attitude that stems from the high energy choirs of African American church gospels. The genuine joy and soul put into their songs gives the performance a life that embodies its high energy holy attitude that cannot be imitated by people outside of African American culture. LeRoi Jones imparts, “There is no one way of thinking, since reference (hence value) is as scattered and dissimilar as men themselves.
The Tempting Temptations With classy dance moves, creative costumes, and smooth vocals, the Temptations were a popular music group during the 1960s. The small group from Detroit had a huge impact on modern society from addressing social issues such as racial injustice, to revolutionizing rhythm and blues music. As a group of five young men, the Temptations began their careers in Motown music where they became an influential quintet that changed the music and culture of the 1960s. Members of the Temptations
James Brown is another person in my era who was very popular and well known for his influence on music as well the introducing of a drug into the lime light PCP. Brown was born extreme poverty but worked his way to be one of the greatest of the funk and R&B music making people give him the nick name "The Godfather of Soul." His musical style influenced many artists to come. Brown was also known for his crazy personal life, as well as role in activism for the black community in combination in his songwriting and advocating for the benefits of education to the
Motown was a transformative sound that arrived just at the height of the civil rights movement. Such success coming from a black business and black artists forced the rest of America to reexamine their racial prejudices that they still clung to. It seemed that it’s founder, Berry Gordy, knew from the start that Motown was something special when he hung a sign that read “Hitsville USA” above the recording studio’s headquarters. The success was almost instant for most Motown artists with song after song becoming number one hits on major music charts. However, the success was not easy, as it took strenuous amounts of work to mold the artist’s looks and sounds into something that would popularize them among the white population.
Wilson’s single song Lonely Teardrops which was co-written by Gordy and Roquel Billy Davis became a huge success but Gordy felt that he has not make much money as he deserves from the release of this song and other single song which he wrote for Wilson. He thought of more lucrative end of his business which was producing records and also owning the royalties of the same songs. Gordy wanted to name their company as Tammy records after a very popular song from his film, Tammy and the Bachelor. When he founded this he was already using it so he decided to use the name
David Less, the author of Memphis Mayhem: A Story of the Music That Shook Up the World, states that music really brought the city together because there was one thing that cultures and communities had in common and that was music. David Less says that “the common denominator for both black and white residents of Memphis was entertainment, which was loved by everyone” and that “music for whites and blacks was everywhere (37).” To add more depth to this statement, David Less also likes to mention that “In the after-hours jazz world of Memphis as early as the 1940s, white and black musicians played together in African Americans clubs (37).”
Nurture vs Nature is a long standing debate in science and society about the balance between the two competing factors determining whether its genetics or environment. Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and many other twisted serial killers you may have heard of. Many people know of them and what they did, but what many people question is why? Why did they do what they did, were they born that way or were they made that way? Serial killers are both born and made because both factors of nurture and nature play a big role and impact serial killers later in life.
The Impact of Hip-Hop Ever since its birth in the 1970s in West Bronx, Hip Hop has been known as “Gangsta” music and most commonly associated with black culture. Since its creation it has become a fast growing genre of music and has growing fame all over the world. The popularity of it has increased to all races, age and gender. However the growing popularity of hip hop has come with several controversies among scholars. Some scholars argue that the growing popularity of the genre is very helpful to low income families who can use this as their outlet into going to Universities, on the other side some believe associating the genre to black culture is bad for the culture as a whole and they should not be associated together.
