Motown Records: What Hitsville USA Still Teaches Producers

Berry Gordy's factory

Berry Gordy founded the company in 1959 with a loan from his family. He had worked on a car assembly line, and he ran Motown on similar principles: songwriters, producers and artists working in shifts, every record going through the same studio, and a weekly quality control meeting where staff voted on which recordings would be released. If a song did not beat the current single, it did not come out.

The studio itself, Studio A in the basement of the house, was small and nicknamed "the Snakepit". The famous echo came from a chamber in the attic. Records were mixed to sound good on small speakers and car radios, which is part of why Motown singles sound so punchy and mid-range heavy.

The Funk Brothers

The musicians on most of those records were not credited on the sleeves for years. The Funk Brothers included James Jamerson on bass, Benny Benjamin and later Uriel Jones and Richard "Pistol" Allen on drums, Earl Van Dyke on keyboards, Robert White, Eddie Willis and Joe Messina on guitar, Jack Ashford on vibes and tambourine, and Eddie "Bongo" Brown on percussion. The 2002 documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown finally told their story.

Jamerson matters most to producers. His bass lines are melodic and busy, full of chromatic passing notes and syncopation, played with one finger on a heavily strung Fender Precision. Listen to "What's Going On" or "Bernadette" and focus on the bass alone: it is effectively a second melody.

The writers and producers

• •Holland–Dozier–Holland: the team behind the Supremes' and Four Tops' biggest hits, built on driving four-on-the-floor tambourine and stacked hooks.
• •Smokey Robinson: songwriter and producer for the Miracles, the Temptations and Mary Wells.
• •Norman Whitfield: took the Temptations into psychedelic soul with "Cloud Nine" and "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone", long tracks with space, wah guitar and orchestral drama.
• •Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder: both broke out of the system in the early 70s to make self-produced albums, What's Going On and the run from Music of My Mind to Songs in the Key of Life.

Motown in samples

Motown is everywhere in hip hop and pop. Jay-Z's "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)" is built on the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back"; MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" rides Rick James's "Super Freak", released on Motown's Gordy label. The Whitfield-era Temptations, the Undisputed Truth and the Rare Earth label (Motown's rock imprint) are deeper sources, with long instrumental passages and heavy drums.

For sample hunters, the less obvious Motown catalogue is where the opportunity is: B-sides, instrumental versions, album tracks by second-tier artists and the 70s releases after the company moved to Los Angeles. The famous hits are cleared-sample territory with famous prices; the deep cuts are not.

What to take into your own productions

• •A melodic bass line can carry a track on its own. Write the bass as a counter-melody, not just root notes.
• •Tambourine on every beat or on the backbeat is a cheap way to add drive without touching the drums.
• •Mix for small speakers. Check your mix on a phone; Motown did the equivalent with a car radio.
• •Quality control works. Make ten versions, keep the one that beats the rest.

Where to start digging

• •Marvin Gaye: What's Going On (1971)
• •The Temptations: Cloud Nine (1969) and All Directions (1972)
• •Stevie Wonder: Innervisions (1973)
• •The Undisputed Truth: The Undisputed Truth (1971)
• •Edwin Starr: War & Peace (1970)
• •Rare Earth: Get Ready (1969)