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ABOUT THE MOTOWN SOUND While there were popular African American musicians prior to the 1960s, including Louis Armstrong , Ethel Waters , Mamie Smith , Ella Fitzgerald , Nat King Cole , Louis Jordan , and Chuck Berry , Motown soul was the most consistently chart-topping genre until Hip-hop . In contrast to previous genres of black popular music, Motown soul used African-American performers instead of grooming white musicians for crossover fame. It was also among the first genres of African-American popular music to move beyond simple lyricisms into the realm of socio-political topics, allowing for a wide range of African-American viewpoints to be expressed in song. The Motown Sound was also defined by the use of orchestration, string sections, charted horn sections, carefully arranged harmonies and other more refined pop music production techniques. It was also one of the first styles of pop music of that era wherein Girl Group s--including The Supremes , Martha & The Vandellas and The Marvelettes --were showcased as an act, as opposed to individual female artists. The Motown producers and the Funk Brothers band used a number of innovative techniques to develop the Motown Sound. Many tracks featured two drummers instead of one, either overdubbed or playing in unison, and three or four guitar lines as well. Bassist James Jamerson often played his instrument with only his Index Finger , and created many of the bubbling basslines apparent on Motown songs such as " You Can't Hurry Love " by The Supremes. While the Funk Brothers had exclusive contracts with Motown, they often secretly recorded instrumental tracks for outside acts, most notably "Cool Jerk" by The Capitols and "Agent Double-O Soul" by Edwin Starr . The style was also showcased by the work of non-Motown artists, including Dusty Springfield and British band The Foundations . On a side note, Great Britain was also the scene where the Motown sound (and that of numerous smaller record companies) was kept alive by the Northern Soul movement, so called due to the fact that it was centered in the northern parts of England.
The sound was saluted in a Rod Stewart song, "The Motown Song" in 1991. EXAMPLES
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