I was born in the fifties, grew up in the 60s, and attended college in the early 70s. The soundtrack of my youth is in many ways the Motown playbook. Whenever I hear any number of those songs, I “Dr. Who” it back to that era when the song was new.
We saw Motown: The Musical Saturday night at The Fabulous Fox Theatre in St. Louis. It was a short three hours of wonderful music and dancing. So many of the performers did the songs so well, it felt like the original artist was there in front of us. Robin thought it was the best show she had seen at the Fox. I would not go that far, but it was definitely up there.
As a bit of background, St. Louis has been on edge for several weeks due the situation in Ferguson with the Michael Brown shooting. A white policeman shot a young black man several times resulting in his death. There were demonstrations and some minor rioting afterwards. The shooting was the evening of August 9, 2014. Here it is Nov 22, 2014 and the grand jury is still out without a decision, although one is expected any day. The typical crowd at a Broadway musical presented at the Fox is older and mostly white. Saturday was a packed house and very much an atypical audience. As would be expected for a show featuring Motown musical, there were many Afro-Americans in attendance. At the beginning of the second act there is a scene in which Marvin Gaye is trying to convince Barry Gordy to allow him to put out an album of protest songs. Gordy tells Gaye,” You can’t say this stuff about trigger happy police.” That line brought a round of applause from one section of the audience. Gordy goes on to say, “there are good cops just like there are bad cops.” This line created applause from a different section of the audience. It was very timely and very chilling. One of the folks who attended with us thought maybe they had put the line in especially for St. Louis. I don’t really think so as this line is from the lyrics to Gaye’s Inner City Blues.
The play is based on the autobiography of Barry Gordy, To Be Loved: The Music, the Magic, the Memories of Motown. And I believe Barry Gordy had a lot to do with the play. While the show could be classified as a long medley of Motown hits, it does have a couple stories interweaving throughout it. One would be the story of Barry Gordy and the rise of Motown. The second would be that rise of Motown against the backdrop of the Civil Rights movement of the 60s.
I really did not know a lot about Motown except that I liked the music. I had no idea that Gordy and Diana Ross were an item. Or that Marvin Gaye was married to Gordy’s sister. I remembered that Diana Ross went off solo and had a good career post Supremes, but I did not know the background. There was any number of bits of information that I learned.
I had heard the term before, “race music”, in conjunction with Elvis Presley. It was felt for a while that Elvis was performing such a “genre”. There is a very telling passage in the show where Gordy is pushing his music at a radio station and is told, “You know we don’t play race music.” Gordy replies, “Well I don’t make race music. I make music for all people to enjoy.” No truer statement could be made about Motown music; everyone enjoyed and still enjoys it. As a kid, I never thought much about the artist singing the songs I liked, except that I liked the song.
I’m old enough to remember signs that read “Whites Only”. I remember asking my mother what that meant, and not getting an answer. There were scenes in the show where the Motown revue played down south and the cops were charged with keeping the races from mixing in the audience. I know that was the way it was, but it seems so strange at this distance. There was a chilling scene of the reaction to the shooting of Martin Luther King, Jr. I suppose it can be argued that in some way Motown help beat down some of the racial barriers.
As I was researching this show, I came across several semi-critical reviews. Some opined that the songs came too fast and furious and no one song really got the treatment it deserved. I can see that. A time or two I wanted a song to go a little longer. Other reviewers felt the story got in the way. Others felt that the story was weak, etc. I took it for what it was meant to be a way to weave the songs together while telling a bit of Motown history and black history. I think it did so very admirably.
Bottom line is that if you have any passion for the music of Motown you will enjoy the show. It is time and money well spent.