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I love to sing old Motown songs to myself, or some Patti Smith Edith Piaf or Billie Holiday. That gets me in the mood for singing.
I grew up when the whole Motown thing was huge. The charts in those days were dominated by groups more than solo artists at one point.
Growing up, I never listened to English music. I was more into Motown, as well as early rock n' roll like Chuck Berry and Little Richard.
My mom was a huge Adam and the Ants fan. My granddad listened to a lot of Motown and Elvis and Johnny Cash. So I was kind of well-rounded.
Testify' went from a clean Motown song to straight psychedelic. Loud and feedback and people was loving it, because Motown was ending now.
I grew up in Ann Arbor, about 25 miles west of Detroit. And when you grow up in that area, you get a healthy dose of Motown automatically.
I've purposely made my music to be challenging and different. There's some electronics, R&B, blues, Motown, country, jazz and lots of soul.
I want to bring that old soul back, the meaningful lyrics and all of that. And I can't think of a better way to do that than through Motown.
Even before coming into the industry, I was a big fan of Motown, the Jackson 5, Gladys Knight, the Temptations, Diana Ross and The Supremes.
Every Motown act dressed classy, and we were clean-cut. Whenever you saw a Motown act, they were polished, and they knew how to treat people.
I don't ever balk at being considered a Motown person, because Motown is the greatest musical event that ever happened in the history of music
Back in the day, Motown was on the pulse of young America. It wasn't about just dope contemporary. It was pop, it was R&B, it was all of that.
I don't ever balk at being considered a Motown person, because Motown is the greatest musical event that ever happened in the history of music.
Motown was about music for all people - white and black, blue and green, cops and the robbers. I was reluctant to have our music alienate anyone.
Style and image - it's what Motown is about. They had a charm school led by Maxine Powell. There was literally an artists' development department.
My father loved music. He loved Motown and R&B, and my mother loved Journey and Fleetwood Mac, so they were always listening to it and playing it.
One of the only things I've regretted was saying yes to a TV special, 'Motown Mania,' and I said I'll sing you a Diana Ross song. It was just naff.
Sometimes you're inspired by an old-school song that you want to chop up and make a sample out of it. I find that with a lot of older Motown music.
Before hip-hop existed, we were listening to soul songs from the '70s. I grew up with Motown, Elton John, and the Beatles. To me, that's good music.
I love Motown, that whole era. Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson. I just put on Pandora, and put it on Motown, and it makes me smile; makes me smile so much.
I think it's all about the music you listen to along the way. For me, my parents always played Motown music and The Beatles, so I was drawn to the soul.
As a kid, looking at Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, New Edition, the Temptations, Motown, people who I felt were huge artists, they made me wanna do something.
My dad was a soul fan and a singer himself, and he loved vocal harmony, stuff like the Beach Boys and Motown like the Four Tops, which was a big influence on me.
I went from elementary school to proper training, operatic training, and I went on to the Motown University and learned a lot of things from some wonderful people.
My music diet growing up was lots of sugar. Lots of retro-pop sugar. Motown, disco. A lot of English rock, like the Turtles, the Zombies, Bowie and stuff like that.
I was really fortunate growing up to have a broad musical education. My parents listened to all kinds of music, rock, soul, Motown, jazz, Frank Sinatra, everything.
Even though I grew up playing folk music - and surf music, originally - I was listening to Motown and Stax on the radio as well. That music always resonated with me.
When we were first started we were doing a lot of Motown stuff, but actually playing it more in a rock way. Everybody in the band sang and we did a lot of harmonies.
Charles and I are from Augusta, Ga. - so we come from James Brown territory, soul music and Motown. And Charles has always had a lot of Southern rock in there as well.
I never thought I would be recording on any professional level, so to be doing a rockabilly, Motown, pop soundtrack in a L.A. studio was completely bizarre and amazing.
My favorite period is when we lived in the land of the three-minute song. The Motown thing - I thought they were genius in knowing that's as much as a listener can take.
I made a good living for a teenager. And I had to learn all different kinds of music - jazz, swing, Motown, pop - and that inspired what kind of music I started to write.
I listened to everything. To the early Motown groups - the Four Tops and the Temptations - to Johnny Mathis, Gloria Lynne - my sisters loved her. Sarah Vaughan. Everything.
A big part of the Motown formula was, they took music and turned it into this sort of automotive assembly line. They were cranking out 10 songs a day in that studio, or more.
The same reason why we're doing music is the same reason why Motown did: to make the world a better place and to make people happy. The main message is, just have a good time.
I was in about in the 8th grade when I started recording R&B, so much of what was on was the Motown sound, and The Beatles had pretty much come over and taken America by storm.
The influence is really all over the place. Detroit, definitely because of Motown and Stooges. When you come from a place like Detroit, you're really proud of what you have there.
There were many stars in Motown's firmament - among them, Stevie, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Martha Reeves and Diana Ross - but I happen to have loved the Four Tops most of all.
When I first got to Motown, Smokey was already a fixture there. To me, he is one of the greatest songwriters and poets, so anything they ask me to do for Smokey is going to get a yes.
Music has always been a big part of Cheech & Chong's career, so it's just natural. You know, I was a musician before I met Cheech and had a record with Motown, and so I've got the cred.
There were a lot of different styles in the house - Motown, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, jazz - and my dad played flamenco guitar. Soon I realized that bass was what was really grooving me.
I grew up in Marcy Projects in Brooklyn, and my mom and pop had an extensive record collection, so Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder and all of those sounds and souls of Motown filled the house.
Growing up in Hitchin was comfortable and easy enough. My parents had some great records - and some not-so-great ones - and that's where I got introduced to Motown and the Stones and Springsteen.
The 'Motown' detour for me was almost like it wasn't work. It was more fun than work, and that's all it takes for me to not be very responsible to other things I should have been paying attention to.
One of my strongest memories is my father playing bongos in the living room in Detroit listening to Motown radio. He was this skinny white bald guy, but he was really moved by blues and Motown and funk.
Everyone you talk to in the world, whether they know it or not, because the catalog is so vast, a lot of times people have favorite songs that are Motown songs that they didn't even know were Motown songs.
I think that there is such power with the live performance of it - so much of what 'Motown' is about is the live performance aspect, really. The power of our production is really the music and the performances.
The Great Migration changed American history not just for the migrants but for all of us. It made possible American cultural milestones like the Harlem Renaissance, Chicago blues, and Motown, just to name a few.
Without the Fender bass, there'd be no rock n' roll or no Motown. The electric guitar had been waiting 'round since 1939 for a nice partner to come along. It became an electric rhythm section, and that changed everything.
I grew up not far from where Motown was founded, maybe 300 miles from Detroit and I've always liked - I used to like the way they made records. I still do, I just haven't had a chance to hear as much. They used to entertain me.