The 25th Anniversary of Motown Records is celebrated by its past and present stars playing their greatest hits, plus some new ones.
Director: Don Mischer
Lester Wilson ... choreographer; in the opening number, he comes in the second wave in the red sweater (and big hair, b. '42), placing himself front and center.
Diane Day ... assistant choreographer
Lester Wilson ... choreographer; in the opening number, he comes in the second wave in the red sweater (and big hair, b. '42), placing himself front and center.
Diane Day ... assistant choreographer
No songs listed in the Soundtracks, but this is nearly all song performances.
I bought the 6-disc set. I watched a disc a day. Nice symmetry: I'm watching this (again) 25 years after it aired, although I bought the discs last year. The whole set is listed as 975 minutes on Amazon, which is 16.25 hrs, and it felt like at least that much. (A reviewer says the total length is 988.)
Disc 1 (the program) Highlights from memory:
- Reunion and medley by The Jackson 5, plus MJ solo of Billie Jean, with the first public performance of the Moonwalk.
- Diana Ross solo, with Supremes, and facilitating the finale.
- Stevie Wonder doing a short speech and a medley.
- Smokey Robinson doing a medley.
- The Temptations and The Four Tops doing a "challenge."
- Marvin Gaye was alive and sang, although he just sounded ok. Also included was archive footage of one of his duets with Tammi Terrell, who died long before. He is murdered less than a year later.
- A speed talking artist reads what seems to be a partial list of Motown artists. Unfortunately, no subtitles on the disc. Here's the Wikipedia discography of Motown with artists.
- I think the only artist shown in archive video-only was Rick James. I don't think they mentioned why he was absent.
- I was impressed that many of the artists were introduced by vintage archive video of them performing, and they transitioned to the next line in the song live, and sounded very, very good.
Medium/Lowlights:
- Adam Ant doing a DR song, and doing it at a slower tempo than the original, looking either embarrassed or stoned or both. He looked like he was about to trip a couple of times. And on closer inspection that was DR who came onstage to wag her behind at him, unplanned. This blog also speculates that AA had no connection to Motown.
- WKRP in Cincinnati (which ended in '82, and they mentioned it was defunct, very punny) stars Howard Hesseman and Tim Reid introducing quicky performances by various artists (probably less than a minute each, but they sang onstage), with HH & TR sort of in character, sitting behind turntables.
- Richard Pryor reading his teleprompter. It might have been cringeworthy if he'd done it well, but he started stumbling, and even commented on himself. He does mug a couple of times, and did the Motown film Lady Sings the Blues ('72), so it made some sense to have him there.
- Linda Ronstadt sounded good doing a duet with Smokey, and I learned from the supplements that she had a hit covering that song, and had been the opening act for The Miracles long ago. The blogger above speculates that NBC wanted some white faces to attract the magic demographic. I might have preferred more Motown acts.
- In a lot of cases, I would much rather have heard the original recordings than the current voices, and I would definitely prefer to have heard full renditions instead of 30 or 60 second samples. A documentary in chronological sequence would be nice. Someone call Ken Burns.
It really was a lot of Smokey Robinson, and he did some of the hosting too. But as we learn in the supplements, he's one who never left Motown, was an executive, a producer and a songwriter in addition to being a performer.
Disc 2 is Marvin Gaye rehearsal & featurettes, plus extensive interviews with Suzanne de Passe & Don Mischer. All good stuff.
Disc 3 has a LOT of talking heads, but all good. The best might be the Motown 25 Performers Roundtable part 2.
Disc 4: more talking heads, mostly songwriters and producers. One former exec likened Motown to a H'wood studio in the 30s because of what the company did to develop artists, and how they never dropped an artist; they had classes for speaking, movement, attire. Everyone's description makes it sound creative, a little chaotic, but organized. I think I heard them say if writer X helped writer Y, they shared in the royalties, yet it was totally competitive too.
Disc 5: If you're hoping for Adam Ant to comment on DR's stage invasion, his interview touched no such topic. The only non-talking-head segment is a brief rehearsal of Stevie Wonder.
Disc 6: This is the white boy's disc. Not every talking head is white and male, but nearly so.
After watching all the supplements, I wanted to see the show again, so I did.
Then I tried adding the Soundtracks to IMDb, but just made the list in my blog.
Now I'm listening to a digital album of 25 Motown #1 Hits. Apparently 57 of them so far (last in '97).
Motown, distr. NBC, dir. Mischer; 8
Disc 2 is Marvin Gaye rehearsal & featurettes, plus extensive interviews with Suzanne de Passe & Don Mischer. All good stuff.
Disc 3 has a LOT of talking heads, but all good. The best might be the Motown 25 Performers Roundtable part 2.
Disc 4: more talking heads, mostly songwriters and producers. One former exec likened Motown to a H'wood studio in the 30s because of what the company did to develop artists, and how they never dropped an artist; they had classes for speaking, movement, attire. Everyone's description makes it sound creative, a little chaotic, but organized. I think I heard them say if writer X helped writer Y, they shared in the royalties, yet it was totally competitive too.
Disc 5: If you're hoping for Adam Ant to comment on DR's stage invasion, his interview touched no such topic. The only non-talking-head segment is a brief rehearsal of Stevie Wonder.
Disc 6: This is the white boy's disc. Not every talking head is white and male, but nearly so.
After watching all the supplements, I wanted to see the show again, so I did.
Then I tried adding the Soundtracks to IMDb, but just made the list in my blog.
Now I'm listening to a digital album of 25 Motown #1 Hits. Apparently 57 of them so far (last in '97).
Motown, distr. NBC, dir. Mischer; 8
