I will return to the Beatles. I just can’t handle the whole saga at one sitting. So let’s talk more about soul.
The Temptations–they made rock and roll a spiritual experience. Did any singing group ever move like that? And their fantastic suits, masculine and tailored in the best possible style. I saw them in person when they came to Pittsburgh and NOBODY sat still. We moved and jived and jumped along with them. I have a special attachment to their song My Girl.
When I was a mobile therapist I drove around, visiting my kids at their homes and schools. One day I went to an elementary school to meet my young client–this was during the last period of school–but the whole school was in the auditorium for a talent show. It was Friday afternoon; TGIF; couldn’t see my assigned client so I sneaked into the auditorium to watch the show. Talking about crying–there were these little kids, getting up on a stage in front of the whole school, singing and dancing their hearts out. There was this one group of eight who performed My Girl. It was mixed race and they just did so amazingly well and professionally; they had obviously practiced a lot. Did their own dance steps…I had tears in my eyes then, too.
Also who could not love Smokey Robinson? I Second That Emotion is my favorite. Why? There’s one line in the song that goes: “A taste of honey’s worse than not at all.” I used this in Buying A Year. Sharon wants to visit Declan in the monastery but he quotes that line. If he saw Sharon again, for only a half hour and surrounded with others, he’d go mad.
And the Four Tops; Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch; Standing in the Shadows of Love; Reach Out; and many more. And who could not love their lead singer Levi Stubbs? A name full of soul. As much as I loved the Temptations, it was listening to the Four Tops that taught me about soul music. Levi Stubbs sang with a sob or cry in his voice, really thrilling to this little white girl from Pittsburgh. And it’s easy to see, when you look back on it all, that all those people who did not like Elvis heard that particular sound in Elvis’ voice; and it was a “Black” sound. The merging of “white” and “black” sounds…
lgmwriting 