Monthly Gathering—May 2006
The Motown Sound The Promise and the Controversy
Motown Records will always be remembered for the music it created working with artists such as The Four Tops, Temptations, Marvelettes, Miracles, Supremes, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, the list goes on and on. Teenagers during the 1960s listened to the “Motown Sound” on records, transistor radios, on the TV dance shows and in the car. Motown was everywhere. Never in history has one record company produced so many top ten hits as Motown did during that incredible decade.
But for Motown’s performers, making the music was fraught with more than its share of illness, substance abuse and behind the scenes conflicts with the record company. For an insider’s view of what really happened both on-stage and off at Motown, join us on Saturday, May 20, when our guest will be Katherine Anderson-Schaffner, a founding member of the Marvelettes, who sang with the group for 10 years.
The Marvelettes was Motown’s first successful female vocal group, and most notable for recording the label’s first number one pop hit, “Please Mr. Postman”. No “one-hit-wonder,” in the years that followed the group also recorded 22 other pop chart hits, including “Beechwood 4-5789,” “Too Many Fish In The Sea,” “Don’t Mess With Bill,” “The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game” and “My Baby Must Be A Magician.” They set the precedent for later Motown girl groups such as The Supremes and Martha Reeves & the Vandellas.
Anderson-Schaffner will give us a first-hand account of how the group adjusted to its meteoric rise from an obscure high school quintet to the top of the music charts in less than a year; the whirlwind lifestyle of a top recording and performing act; the tours; the challenges, the triumphs and the defeats.
For more information on the Marvelettes see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marvelettes.
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