“It wasn’t until their fifth album, 1974’s Open Our Eyes, that EW+F started to have hits. (Lead singer Maurice) White had brought in Charles Stepney, a friend and colleague from Chicago (and also in-house arranger and producer at Chess Records, where White had cut his teeth as a session drummer in the late 60s), to co-produce, and sessions took place in Colorado in 1973,” (The Guardian).
“Philip Bailey had joined, and he and Maurice became a potent force with their striking dual vocals – an idea the band patterned in part on Sérgio Mendes’s Brasil 66. The first single from the album, ‘Mighty Mighty,’ echoes key EW+F influences (Sly + the Family Stone formally; Curtis Mayfield in the title and lyrical tone), but is definably the work of a band in charge of their own sound and style.”
The 1974 tune hit #29 on Billboard‘s pop chart and #4 on its Hot Soul Singles chart. Its heavy funk groove drives the track to its first upward half-step key change (0:52). After the first chorus, the tonality falls back to the original key at 1:25. The cycle repeats from there.
“In 1969 an interracial R&B group from Washington, DC posted their one and only Top 40 hit,” (45RuminationsPerMegabyte). “The song, ‘Color Him Father,’ is written from the point of view of a young man explaining the role his father has in their house. He sings of coming home from school, and how his father stresses the importance of education, and how the man he calls father helps his mother, and all of that. At first, it seems like just another cute song with simple lyrics (‘My mother loves him and I can tell/By the way she looks at him when he holds my little sister Nell’ isn’t the greatest rhyme ever written, but it works). After a quick bridge, the tone abruptly changes:
My real old man he got killed in the war And she knows she and seven kids couldn’t have got very far She said she thought that she could never love again And then there he stood with that big wide grin He married my mother and he took us in And now we belong to the man with that big wide grin
Yep – this is a song about step-parenting, and it just got really, really dusty in here. The song went on to become a huge hit, making it to #7 on the pop chart, #2 on the R&B chart, and claiming the Grammy award for Best R&B song in 1969.”
After running in Ab major through several verses and choruses, a brief instrumental interlude (1:59) shifts us up to A major for another verse and chorus.
“Lee and the Leopards, like many Toledo groups, were swept up in the explosion of the Motown powered Detroit R&B/soul explosion of the early 1960s,” (DooWopBlogg). “The group started around 1961, and included Lee Moore as the namesake and lead singer, George Miller Ross, Prentiss Anderson, and James Porter … The group had brought some of their own songs, but (Motown’s founder) Berry Gordy wanted them to sing some of the in-house songs. The group went back to Toledo and they reworked one of the songs ‘Come Into My Palace.’ The group returned to Detroit a few days later and within a day, they had the song recorded at Motown.
… The record was a big hit on WOHO and WTOD in Toledo and also on Detroit stations. The group did some promotional shows with WTOD. The record was picked up by Laurie records because the Motown operation did not have a full scale national promotional system. The group recorded a second 45 at Fortune, and a final 45 for K-Lee label from Adrian, MI. For the last record, the group recorded their own song “The Gypsy Said” backed by a band called the Rivieres from Adrian. When the record came out, the label credited the Rivieres instead of Lee and the Leopards. Some of the copies had stickers for Lee and the Leopards. After the group ended, Prentiss Anderson spent many years backing up various Motown related groups.”
“Trying to Make It” (1962) is primarily a blues in G minor. But the tune’s midsection is a brief bridge (1:26 – 1:42) that’s mostly in G major.
“Listen to this track by Motown titan and smooth as silk soul-pop provider Marvin Gaye, along with his vocal counterbalance, and no slouch in the soaring vocal department herself, Tammi Terrell,” (The Delete Bin). “It’s ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,’ a single from writing partnership and real-life couple Ashford & Simpson. The song was a top twenty hit single in 1967, released on the Tamla label, a sister label of Motown, eventually appearing on the Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell joint album United.
The song was thought of by its writers as being their golden ticket into the Motown stable, even turning down Dusty Springfield who wanted to record it herself. Ashford and Simpson held it back , and it was eventually offered as a duet to Marvin Gaye, and to Tammi Terrell who made it one of the most prominent songs of the Motown catalogue, and an important record of the whole decade. Later on, Diana Ross would record it when she split with the Supremes and went solo in 1970. It would be a number one hit, and become a signature tune for her.Yet, it’s the alchemy that the Gaye-Terrell version offers that makes this the definitive version of the song.
… Their collaboration yielded several hits of the classic Motown era, including ‘Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing,’ ‘You’re All I Need To Get By,’ and ‘Your Precious Love,’ also all Ashford & Simpson songs. They would record three albums together over the next two years, with this period being looked upon by many as one of the finest in Marvin Gaye’s career, with Terell contributing significantly to that success.
But, there was something very wrong. Terrell had suffered migraines for many years, and one night during a concert in Virginia, Terrell stumbled on stage and collapsed in Gaye’s arms … Later, it was discovered that she was suffering from malignant tumours in her brain.” No treatments were successful in the long term, and “Tammi Terrell died in March of 1970 at the young age of 24, the same year Diana Ross recorded her version of this song. Retrospectively, ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ is an anthem to Terrell’s determination to succeed despite her cancer diagnosis … The song’s epic quality would attract cover versions from many. But, this original version is the one by which all others must be judged, including Diana Ross’, largely due to the sheer defiant vitality that Tammi Terrell brought to the performance. Marvin Gaye would of course continue to make his mark as one of the most gifted vocalists of his generation. But with Terrell gone, this vital phase of his career was at an end, with that combination of voices bursting with personality never to be repeated.”
Packing a complex arrangement and a true wall of sound into its spare 2.5-minute length, the track climbs to its bridge at 1:18, then shifts up from D major to Eb major at 1:37.
“Written by Dexter Wansel, Cynthia Biggs, and Kenneth Gamble, ‘If Only You Knew’ became the Patti Labelle’s first #1 R&B hit as a solo artist,” (Songfacts). “Wansel – who also collaborated with Biggs on the track ‘Shoot Him On Sight’ from LaBelle’s previous album, The Spirit’s In It – didn’t think the mid-tempo ballad was that great, but LaBelle disagreed. ‘She loved it from the very beginning and saw the potential, that there were a lot of lonely people out there who loved other people and didn’t really know how to say it,’ he recalled in The Billboard Book Of Number One R&B Hits. ‘She felt like she could say it for them.’
LaBelle found fame as the leader of the progressive soul trio Labelle, who had a big hit with ‘Lady Marmalade’ in 1974. Following their split a couple years later, she worked hard to build a solo career that earned her critical acclaim, but she struggled to make the charts. After releasing her first four albums with Epic, LaBelle signed with Philadelphia International Records, pinning her hopes for a hit on the label’s founders, Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff. The songwriting and production duo was behind many of the hottest soul singles of the ’70s, including ‘If You Don’t Know Me By Now,’ ‘Love Train,’ and ‘Me and Mrs. Jones.’ Her first album with PIR didn’t yield any hits, but she finally scored on I’m In Love Again (1983). Aside from being her first R&B chart-topper, “If Only You Knew” was her first solo crossover hit, peaking at #46 on the Hot 100.” The track also climbed all the way to #1 on the Cash Box US Black Contemporary Singles chart.
The intro is in E major, but there’s an early shift to C# major when the verse starts at 0:29. The chorus (0:58) returns to E major; the alternating pattern continues throughout.
“Cousins Melvin Hardin and Tim McPherson were from Mississippi, but they eventually moved to Chicago, where they were discovered by Gene Chandler,” (Popdose). “He … co-produced the smash hit ‘Backfield in Motion’ for them. Stax Records, as they often did, sent (Mel + Tim) to Muscle Shoals to record with the Swampers, two of whom, Barry Beckett and Roger Hawkins, produced the next Mel + Tim hit. ‘Starting All Over Again’ was written by Phillip Mitchell and released on Stax in 1972. The record, with its production modeled on the Chi-Lites hit ‘Have You Seen Her’ (including the use of the electric sitar), was a Top 20 hit on the Pop chart and reached #4 on the R&B chart. It remained on the charts for 20 weeks, and became Mel & Tim’s second million-seller.
It’s hard to know why some talented artists have long lasting careers while others fade away. Mel + Tim performed at the fabled Wattstax concert in 1972, but even that highly visible appearance didn’t help them find any real chart success with their subsequent releases. ‘I May Not Be What You Want’ (1973), ‘That’s the Way I Want to Live My Life’ (1974), and ‘Forever and a Day’ (1974) all found a place in the Top 100 on the R&B chart, but unlike Mel + Tim’s earlier hits, did not have much in the way of crossover success … ” In 1991, a nearly note-for-note cover of ‘Starting All Over Again’ by Daryl Hall and John Oates “became a Top 10 hit on the Adult Contemporary chart.”
At 2:41, an unprepared half-step key change hits during an instrumental section leading into the extended outro.
“Originally recorded by singer-songwriter Leon Russell, ‘This Masquerade’ comes from George Benson’s 1976 album Breezin’, which was a major critical and commercial success for the guitarist,” (JazzIz). “Benson’s first ever single … (featured his) intricate guitar work” combined with his “now-famous overlaid vocals.”
Benson “transformed the song into a masterpiece of crossover jazz-pop. Benson, at the time, had never even heard of the song—or Leon Russell,” (TheChurchStudio.com). “He later revealed that producer and manager Tommy LiPuma pushed him to record it. But once he did, Benson called it ‘one of the finest tunes of our time, with a beautiful melody and a great story.’ He later discovered that the song’s harmonic structure was loosely based on the jazz standard ‘Angel Eyes,‘ which, he said, is why ‘so many jazz musicians dig playing it … Leon did us all a great favor when he wrote it.’
That recording made music history. ‘This Masquerade’ became the first song ever to simultaneously top the Jazz, Pop, and Rhythm & Blues charts, a groundbreaking achievement that reflected its universal appeal. The track went on to win the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1977, solidifying the song as an American classic.”
After a 30-second intro, the tune is built primarily in F minor for the first one-third of the form. The tune shifts to a less melancholic sound (though the lyrics refuse to follow suit) when it switches to Db major at 1:14, then C major at 1:36. For the final third, there’s a return to a doleful F minor.
“If there was a Mount Rushmore for songwriters, the poetic Smokey Robinson would be permanently etched in stone alongside the illustrious likes of Lennon–McCartney, Bob Dylan and all the key standards composers,” (ChicagoConcertReviews). “The Temptations’ ‘My Girl,’ Mary Wells’ ‘My Guy,’ and Marvin Gaye’s ‘Ain’t That Peculiar’ are a just a few of the more than 4,000 credits, in addition to fellow timeless tunes ‘You’ve Really Got a Hold On Me,’ ‘The Tracks of My Tears,’ ‘Ooo Baby Baby,’ ‘I Second That Emotion’ and ‘The Tears of a Clown” while fronting The Miracles throughout the 1960s and early ‘70s.”
Robinson on his early career: “‘We were the first group at Motown when Berry [Gordy] started Motown. We were there before he even started Motown, so it was just the beginning, man. A lot of energy going on. A lot of young people coming by to audition, to be signed up, hustle and bustle, and music.'”
Sticking to the preferred radio airplay runtime of that era — three minutes or less (2:58) — “Broken Hearted,” a non-single track from the Miracles sophomore album Cookin’ With the Miracles (1961), shifts up a half-step at 1:54.
“Stevie Wonder turned 18 years old during 1968. Since the age of 12 he had been producing hits and had become one of the most commercially successful artists for the Motown label,” (Seattle Post Intelligencer). “Motown was known for the control of its artists and their output. Wonder, however, was beginning to establish his own identity and take control of his career. His contract with the label was coming to an end and Motown desperately wanted to sign him to a new one and so began giving him leeway in the producing and recording of his albums.
Wonder co-wrote or wrote eight of the 12 tracks on For Once In My Life, plus took production credit for the first time … It was one of the four compositions credited to other songwriters that became the album’s title track and biggest hit. Ron Miller and Orlando Murden wrote ‘For Once In My Life’ for the label and not specifically for Wonder. His version, however, would become the definitive one. Artists such as The Temptations and Tony Bennett would record the song in a ballad style. Wonder would change it into an exuberant, up-tempo, and soulful classic. It reached #2 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart and #1 on the Rhythm and Blues chart.”
“Wonder and his producer, Hank Cosby … sped it up, gave it a string arrangement, complete with an animated piccolo motif, and turned it into his biggest hit to date, kept from the US #1 spot only by his fellow Motowner, Marvin Gaye,” (Yahoo). “Wonder’s probable lack of enthusiasm at singing someone else’s song is concealed by his exuberant performance.” The grand scale of the tune’s arrangement, coupled with Stevie’s overflowing energy, would never hint at its short run time of only 2:49. But with apparently astounding precision, the tune’s half-step key change is situated at almost exactly the half-way mark (1:25).
“Pianist/singer/songwriter Don Blackman, born in 1953 in Queens, New York, grew up surrounded by jazz influences; a cousin was McCoy Tyner’s friend and saxophonist Charles McPherson — a Charlie Parker disciple — was Blackman’s neighbor,” (Qobuz). “Blackman played with McPherson’s group in 1968 alongside Sam Jones and Louis Hayes when he was 15 years old. He switched to electric piano and toured with Parliament/Funkadelic in the early ’70s. He later became an original member of Lenny White’s Twennynine (‘Peanut Butter’), a key piece in Jamaica Queens’ ’70s jazz-funk explosion.
A deal with GRP/Arista birthed the solo LP Don Blackman (1982), a good set saddled by poor promotion. His extensive résumé included Kurtis Blow sessions and singing ‘Haboglabotrin’ on Bernard Wright’s ‘Nard album. A fixture in New York studios, he worked on sessions for a long list of artists including Najee, David Sanborn, and Roy Ayers, and his composition ‘Live to Kick It’ graced 2Pac’s R U Still Down? (Remember Me) release. Don Blackman died on April 11, 2013 after battling cancer; he was 59 years old.”
A track from Blackman’s eponymous 1982 album, the ballad “Since You Been Away So Long” draws from R&B and jazz influences. The tune starts in Bb minor, shifts to A minor at 0:29, then B minor at 0:46. More shifts continue from there. Complex backing vocals, etherial instrumental countermelodies which seem to float down from the skies, and a flighty vocal/guitar duo feature are among a few of the intricate facets on offer with this sadly overlooked release.
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