Quote of the Day (Motown Legend Lamont Dozier, on Writer’s Block)

“There’s no such thing as writer’s block. Stop feeding those lies about writer’s block. Writer’s block only exists in your mind, and if you tell yourself you have it, it will cripple your ability to function as a creative person. The answer to so-called writer’s block is doing the work. If you press on, the answers you need will come through. You have to show the muses that you’re capable and committed, then you’ll get the answers you need.”—Motown composer Lamont Dozier (1941-2022), How Sweet It Is: A Songwriter’s Reflections on Music, Motown and the Mystery of the Muse (2019)

(The photo of Lamont Dozier accompanying this post was taken July 10, 2009, by Phil Konstantin.)

Concert Review: Diana Ross at Chautauqua Institution, NY

As soon as I heard that Diana Ross was coming to the Chautauqua Institution at the end of the week I was vacationing there, I resolved to see her. I don’t believe she had ever given a concert in this famous amphitheater in southwestern New York that had also seen such musicians as John Philip Sousa, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, The Beach Boys, and Michael Jackson; and, given her age, I didn’t know how many more chances I might get to see her perform again.

As it happened, I counted myself lucky to see her at all. The show sold out weeks in advance, and I was unsure, because of Chautauqua’s revised amphitheater seating arrangements of the last couple of years (notably, its “preferred seating” section), if I would even be able to get in. 

Luckily, armed with my weekly pass to the grounds, all I had to do was line up an hour and a half before the show. Even that far ahead of time, the line—senior citizens, the middle-aged, the young, the diehard fans and the merely curious—stretched down the hill.

I had never seen the Motown legend in concert. I suspect that many in the audience that night did not labor under this handicap. A middle-aged guy next to me, for instance, said his wife—sitting much closer to the stage than us—had seen the singer seven times, on this tour alone.

“This tour” was being billed as the “75^th Birthday Tour,” but it could just as easily have been labeled the “60^th Anniversary Tour,” as Ms. Ross had signed her first professional contract, with Motown, in 1959. Whichever title you prefer, the point is that Ms. Ross is a show-business veteran. She knows what her audience wants and what she must do to fulfill these expectations. 

More often than not, those expectations boil down to her greatest hits and a heavy dose of glamour—or, as another audience member noted at the conclusion of the show, “19 songs and five costume changes.”

Ms. Ross and her troupe—four backup singers and a tight set of musicians—have become quite adept at those wardrobe transitions. As she changed rapidly into yet another sartorial stunner (e.g., a clinging, gray sequined gown), her musicians used the additional two or three minutes tacked on at the end of particular songs to jam, demonstrating their considerable skill. (Saxophonist John Scarpulla was particularly impressive.)

Throughout the tour, Ross has not been afraid to vary her set list and even her routine, depending on the locale and the occasion. (At the Hollywood Bowl, for instance, backed by a full orchestra, she included several less-familiar tunes; at New York’s Radio City Music Hall less than two weeks before the Chautauqua gig, a number of tunes resonated very strongly with fans celebrating Pride Month; and on another occasion, she took audience questions, Carol Burnett-style.)

At Chautauqua, the opening number was—hardly a surprise—“I’m Coming Out,” with much of the early going featuring such hits from Ms. Ross’ Sixties heyday with the Supremes as “Stop in the Name of Love,” “Come See About Me,” “You Can’t Hurry Love” and “Love Child.” 

Later, solo career hits from the Seventies and early Eighties also thrilled the audience, such as “Touch Me in the Morning,” “Take Me Higher,” “Upside Down,” and the most familiar tunes from her films Lady Sings the Blues, Mahogany, and The Wiz. Some cover tunes (notably, of The Spiral Staircase’s “More Today Than Yesterday” and Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers’ “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?”) were also greeted warmly, as they have become concert staples of hers, too.

Like the ancient Roman huntress Diana, Ms. Ross has achieved the status of a deity. Remarkably, she has lost little not only in glamour but in the quality of her voice. While never powerful, even thin at points, it retains its warmth and sweetness, reaching out to touch three generations of fans. It was aided in Chautauqua by brief but effective stage patter in which she not only expressed sincere gratitude for fans’ affection but also conveyed a welcoming manner to many—notably, children she invited onstage with hugs and statements like, “Don’t be shy—I’m a grandmommy!” 

For all her undoubtedly sincere regard for her audience, Ms. Ross became a decade-defying institution less out of love than shrewdness and toughness—a canny calculation of her strengths and weaknesses matched only by her ability to withstand an entertainment industry that places a premium on trendiness and youth. In the eyes of some peers (notably, Supremes colleague Mary Wilson), she has gone beyond being a diva to being a termagent. 

But that endurance should be celebrated, too—as Ms. Ross did, implicitly, with the final song, song made famous not by her but by Gloria Gaynor: “I Will Survive.” The reaction at Chautauqua confirmed that she had done so, emphatically, already.

Daughter Rhonda Ross, a singer-songwriter and guitarist in her own right, preceded her mother in a 5-song, 15-minute set that was respectfully received by the audience in the amphitheater. Respect, that is, but not rapture, which can only be generated by goddesses like her mother. Or, as a lyric from my favorite song of hers goes: On that you can depend, and never worry.

(Photo of Diana Ross taken by Harry Wad at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert, Oslo Spektrum, Norway, Nov. 11, 2008.)

Flashback, November 1968: Temptations, Supremes Join in ‘I’m Gonna Make You Love Me’

Few songs fill me with the kind of elation I hear in every note of “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me,” released as a single 50 years ago this week. This collaboration between male and female singing colossi—The Temptations and The Supremes, respectively—could have been merely an example of Motown mogul Berry Gordy Jr.’s matchless sense of the musical mainstream of the Sixties. 

But producers Frank Wilson and Nick Ashford crafted what the London Independent called a “shivers-down-the-spine remake” of a song by 25-year-old Philadelphia-based composer Kenny Gamble and his mentor Jerry Ross. In the process, Wilson and Ashford coaxed some of the most inspired performances from two groups that, at close to their commercial zenith, were integral to the success of “Hitsville, U.S.A.” 

The genesis of the hit began with the 20 minutes it took Gamble and Ross to write it at the piano in 1966. In the next two years, versions of it became middling hits for Dee Dee Warwick (Dionne Warwicke's sister) and Madeline Bell (Dusty Springfield’s friend and backup singer), and Jerry Butler also recorded a very fine cover. 

But now, Motown, in having The Supremes join forces with The Temptations, was reaching beyond its own music factory for a not-terribly-well-known product (Warwick’s take had been released by Mercury Records). The studio had succeeded only once before with a similar move, with the Four Tops' cover of "If I Were a Carpenter" the year before.

Maybe it took Ashford, who had sung backup on Warwick’s single, to find the key to unlocking the song’s full commercial potential. Having joined Motown, with writing-producing partner Valerie Simpson, after working on the original single, he was now in a position to do something about it. 

What also can’t be discounted was Gordy’s decision to magnify a highly successful studio formula. He had seen how duets with Tami Terrell had nudged the diffident Marvin Gaye away from more traditional jazz vocalizing and towards powerhouse rhythm and blues. Gordy especially loved the opportunity that duets afforded to double an album’s customer base. That, though, was with two voices. When Gordy gave the green light to Diana Ross and the Supremes Join the Temptations, he was putting eight in the studio mix: three female, five male.

Those eight voices had been increasingly clamorous of late. The year before, the Supremes’ Florence Ballard had been kicked out of the group. Gordy yielded to Ross’ demand that her frontwoman status be formally in the group’s new name—“Diana Ross and the Supremes”—altering the dynamics between the lead and fellow singers Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong.

Turbulence was also the order of the day with The Temptations. Heavy drug use and resulting erratic behavior by Dennis Ruffin led to the painful decision to part ways with this powerful lead singer and replace him in July 1968 with Dennis Edwards. 

Though the addition of Edwards continued The Temptations’ string of hits with the psychedelic “Cloud Nine,” a smash upon release in October, Gordy may have felt the group could use, in effect, an insurance policy. The combination with The Supremes seemed the best route to go.

Diana Ross and the Supremes Join the Temptations was meant to reinforce a splashy prime-time TV special, TCB, set to air during the 1968 holiday season. The climax of that production, “The Impossible Dream,” was intended to be the single, with “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me” a seeming afterthought. 

Those careful plans were hastily put aside when radio DJs, once they got hold of advance copies of the album, started to play “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me” instead. It’s easy to see why. 

The production contrasted the moods and styles of the leads—Ross, arch and playful (“I'm gonna use every trick in the book/I'll try my best to get you hooked”) and the Temptations’ Eddie Kendricks, tender and yearning in his falsetto (“Every minute, every hour/I'm gonna shower you with love and affection”). It was all supported by Motown’s ace background musicians, including “Ready” Freddy Washington, who managed to sight-read the tune’s complex bass chart on the first take.

Unexpectedly hearing the Temptations-Supremes version of his song on the radio while out driving, Gamble had to pull over to avoid crashing. “That was unbelievable, hearing them play that song. This was my favorite group, the Temptations.”

After that, a string of hits followed (notably, Jerry Butler’s “Only the Strong Survive”), and, as Gamble recalled in an interview for the Grammy Awards Web site, “Everything was busting wide open. It was a musical explosion.” 

Gordy offered him and partner Leon Huff jobs at Motown, but the two decided to strike out on their own. By 1971, they had enough of a track record to launch Philadelphia International Records, later home of such million-sellers as "Love Train" (the O'Jays), "Me And Mrs. Jones" (Billy Paul), and "If You Don't Know Me By Now" (Harold Melvin and The Bluenotes).

As for the song that gave birth to it all: The Temptations played “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me” by themselves live in concert in their heyday (e.g., this audio recording, from YouTube, at a 1970 London appearance), but they never did so live with Diana Ross and The Supremes. (Ms. Ross had a flirtatious duet with Steven Wonder on The Hollywood Palace a year later.) 

More’s the pity: Though Gordy merged the male and female voices for entirely commercial reasons, the meshing of the two different sounds made this an artistic triumph, too. 

You will find upteen covers of the song between YouTube and the likes of Spotify (including by Lou Christie, and, inevitably, an “American Idol” version featuring contestants Candice Glover, Amber Holcomb, and Angie Miller). But I can’t hear any other version in my mind than the one by The Temptations and The Supremes. It carries everything before it, like the love they hail so exultantly.

This Day in Pop Music History (Levi Stubbs, Powerful Lead of 4 Tops, Dies)

Oct. 17, 2008—Levi Stubbs, the commanding frontman of the enduring soul band The Four Tops, died in his sleep at age 72 in his home in Detroit, the city where he was born, raised and achieved fame.

In May 1992, I was lucky enough to catch the Four Tops in concert in Las Vegas. In town for a trade convention, my group was looking to relax after an exhausting day. I wasn’t sure what to expect but was delighted by the end of the show.

With their resonant voices and refusal to turn out cookie-cutter versions of their old hits, Stubbs and his bandmates—first tenor Abdul “Duke” Fakir, second tenor Lawrence Payton and baritone Renaldo “Obie” Benson—deserved to sell out large arenas rather than a Vegas showroom. But their loss was their listeners’ gain, as we enjoyed hearing them in an intimate setting.

I had grown up in the late Sixties hearing their string of Motown hits—"I Can't Help Myself,” “It's The Same Old Song,” “Bernadette,” “Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever,” and “Reach Out, I'll Be There”—on WABC-AM, New York’s top 40 radio station, so I was certainly familiar with their work.

What I did not appreciate at the time was the bond of loyalty that kept the quartet together for 40 years—remarkable, then and now, in a music industry rife with egotism, money squabbles, and drug addiction. Those forces could divide and decimate the most enormous talents, as seen in the Four Tops’ colleagues in the Motown music factory, the Temptations.

Colleagues in the Four Tops may have appreciated that intense loyalty even more than Stubbs’ baritone. Fakir, for instance, told Billboard after Stubbs’ death: “He had many chances and many offers to be lured away into his own solo world, but he never wanted that. He said, 'Man, all I really want to do is sing and take care of my family, and that's what I'm doing, so all is well. Everything else that doesn't include you guys, it doesn't mean a thing to me.' That kind of character and commitment is really hard to find these days." 

Only serious illness could keep Stubbs from performing with his old friends till the end. Cancer and a stroke silenced and sidelined him for good after 2000, though he still tried to see the remaining Four Tops in concert as much as he could.

I could tell you how versatile Stubbs’ voice was—how it could rumble, implore, promise, agonize, woo, even threaten with carnivorous gusto (as when he sang as “Audrey II,” the man-eating "Mean, Green Mother from Outer Space," in the 1986 movie version of Little Shop of Horrors). But you knew that already. (And if you didn’t, I urge you to go now and listen to any Four Tops records.)

But a performer of transcendent goodness is every bit as worth celebrating as one of transcendent talent. Back in 1992, I would, if I had ever had the chance, thank Stubbs for giving such a great show. Now, knowing somewhat more about him, I would also be grateful for his tight bonds with his city, audience and friends.