Glasgow Mods - R&B, British Beat Music, Motown, Northern Soul

Some more groovy stuff which I’d like to dedicate to Tam Gow, Sting and all the MoD Mods.

After reading the stories and listening to the comradery of the guys and girls we all ran about with as teenagers, I dont think there could be any doubting the fine class of people who were part of the mod movement!

Have a look at us now Sgt B’stard and your Stewart Street cronies - we are still the Mods!

More Groovy Stuff here:

It’s Groovy Baby, Yeah!

Groovy fun with Glasgow Mods

written by stevie fae cranhill \\ tags: dusty springfield, Groovy, small faces, Swinging 60's, The Box Tops, Tom Jones

This is a great video featuring the Beatles, Billy Fury, Dusty Springfield, John Lennon clowning around, great shots of mods dancing, The Hollies “Just One Look”, Dave Clark Five “Bit’s and Pieces”, Georgie Fame, Rufus Thomas “Walking The Dog” it goes on so I will let you enjoy this great clip. There are few dropouts on the video but still worth watching.

The Weekend Starts here

Popular music shows that showcased the up-and-coming stars of the day were nothing new in 1963, indeed the BBC had led the way nearly six years earlier with ‘Six-Five Special,’ and ATV had countered that in 1958 with ‘Oh Boy.’ What made ‘RSG’ special was that it arrived at the same time as the British beat boom, when groups such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who were on the verge of taking the music world by storm, a time when 60’s youth culture hit the streets running and swept aside all that stood in its way, a time that was fresh and exciting. The show finished in 1966 at the height of its popularity and has since gone on to attain cult status.

Filmed in Rediffusion’s Studio 9 in Kingsway, London, the show went out live on Friday nights at 6pm and opened with the slogan “The Weekend Starts Here”, and to the tune of The Sufaris’ hit ‘Wipe Out,’ which was later replaced by Manfred Mann’s ‘5-4-3-2-1.’ Although introduced by former Cambridge law graduate and Radio Luxembourg DJ Keith Fordyce, it was his co-host, Cathy McGowan, who became the real star of the programme. McGowan had been working in an office at the television company when she answered an advertisement for a ‘typical teenager’ to act as advisor to the show, and was rewarded by being pushed in front of the cameras without the benefit of any training or broadcasting experience. But her natural charm, enthusiasm, style and beauty made up for the occasional fluffed lines or missed cues, and she quickly became a role model for the female population as well as being nominated, unofficially, as Queen of the Mods.

Whereas the BBC’s ‘Top of the Pops’ (which started the following year), concerned itself with the top ten or twenty chart hits, ‘RSG’ was not afraid of being the showcase for new talent, and consequently artists such as Eric Burdon and The Animals, The Kinks, Donovan, and The Pretty Things were given their television debuts, and US artists such as Sonny and Cher, The Four Tops, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Rufus Thomas and Marvin Gaye, were introduced to a British audience for the first time. Of course the popular artistes of the day featured heavily, The Beatles and Dusty Springfield being frequent visitors, and whilst most of the acts mimed to their own recordings, there were some memorable live performances from the likes of Georgie Fame, The Beach Boys and The Who.

written by JimmyTheMod \\ tags: beatles, Billy Fury, Dave Clark Five "Bit's and Pieces", dusty springfield, Georgie Fame, great shots of mods dancing, John Lennon clowning around, Rufus Thomas "Walking The Dog", The Hollies "Just One Look"

Technology can bring a lot of things too a lot of people, At Glasgow Mods we believe that technology should bring the music together. Please find enclosed a full version of RSG and The Sounds Of Motown, presented by the wonderful Dusty Springfield, not a 10 minute version in separate parts but a wonderful non stop celebration of the Funk Brothers achievements. Until the movie Standing in the Shadows of Motown documentary was made, the members of the band were not widely known to the public for their contributions to the Motown sound, despite having played the music in many Motown hits. Studio musicians were not credited on Motown releases until Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On in 1971, although Motown released a handful of singles and LPs by Earl Van Dyke. The Funk Brothers shared top billing with Van Dyke on some of these recordings, although they were billed as “Earl Van Duke & the Soul Brothers”, since Motown CEO Berry Gordy, Jr. disliked the connotation of the word “funk”.

The band used a number of innovative techniques for performing the backing tracks for many Motown songs. For example, most Motown records feature two drummers instead of one, either playing together or overdubbing one another — Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” used three drummers. A number of songs utilized instrumentation and percussion unusual in soul music recording. The Temptations’ “It’s Growing” features Earl Van Dyke playing a toy piano for the song’s introduction, snow chains are used as percussion on Martha & the Vandellas‘ “Nowhere to Run”, and a custom oscillator was built to create the synthesizer sounds used to accent Diana Ross & the Supremes‘ “Reflections” A tire iron was used in the Martha & the Vandellas “Dancing in the Streets”.

Dissolution and later years

During the mid to late-1960s, roughly one-fifth of Motown records began utilizing session musicians based in Los Angeles, usually covers and tributes of mainstream pop songs and showtunes. By 1970, an increasing number of Motown sessions were being done in Los Angeles instead of Detroit, most notably all of The Jackson 5’s hit recordings. Nevertheless, Motown producers such as Norman Whitfield, Frank Wilson, Marvin Gaye, and Smokey Robinson steadfastly continued to record in Detroit for as long as they could.

The Funk Brothers were dismissed from Motown’s service in 1972, when Berry Gordy moved Motown to Los Angeles. A few of the members, including Jamerson, migrated to Los Angeles, but found the environment foreign and uncomfortable. Jamerson died in 1983, Brown in 1984, Van Dyke in 1992, White in 1994, Allen and Griffith in 2002, and Hunter in 2007.

written by admin \\ tags: dusty springfield, funk brothers, martha reeves, mods soul, motown, smokey robinson, soul, stevie wonder, temptations