Lamont Dozier Passes Away

The greatest pop music ever.  I have most of it, but the sound quality makes it hard to listen to a lot of it,  which I consider criminal.  And I am not an Audiophile.

Cheers

Excellent points @tylermunns. I’m of an age where the first music I bought was 7" 45 RPM singles, and my love of 3-minute Pop songs lives on unabated (all hail ABBA ;-). The albums I was first buying were those of Surf bands (The Ventures, The Astronauts out of Denver, The Beach Boys of course---though they weren’t really a Surf band; Surf music is instrumental.), and the pre-Beatles Rock ’n’ Roll of Paul Revere & The Raiders, The Kingsmen, other groups making what Pop music historians now call Frat Rock.

I for some reason also bought a Jimmy Smith organ trio record (I loved the sound of those Hammond organ bass pedals!), and when I joined the Columbia Records Club (paying for it with money from my paper route ;-) my introductory free LP choice was Johnny Horton’s greatest hits. My mom had two albums that I distinctly remember: Johnny Cashes Ring Of Fire (I listened to that LP hundreds of times, laying in front of the Magnavox console with my chin in my hands), and Naughty But Nice by Pearl Bailey. She also liked Elvis, but I don’t remember seeing an Elvis album in the house.

The albums I have of 60’s Soul/R & B/"Urban" Pop (as apposed to Suburban Pop ;-) are greatest hits LP’s, for the very reason you state. Just as with Country artists, it was the hit single that was the focus of the Pop music industry during most of the 60’s. Of course The Beatles (and underground FM radio) changed all that, but it took awhile for the Motown, Tamla, Stax, Atlantic, etc. record companies to start thinking in terms of full albums. The first album by an artist from one of those labels I bought was Stevie Wonder’s Talking Book, which is a really, really good one. No filler, all quality material. And of course the fantastic singing, clavinet playing, and drumming of Stevie. You drummers out there: try playing with your eyes closed ;-) .

In 1971 I joined my first all-original band, and when I moved into the band house that summer the bassist looked through record collection, and said "You have weird music." He had seen my best of/greatest hits albums of The Shirelles (The Beatles didn’t consider them weird, having included "Baby It’s You"---a song written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach---on their debut album), The Platters (The Band included "The Great Pretender" on their Juke Joint album), The Drifters (their "On Broadway"---written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil---is an absolute masterpiece), The Coasters (I saw them live in 1966, and they were fantastic. They had a real tight little 3-pc band comprised of white guys ;-), Wilson Pickett (his best music was recorded with backing by The Swampers, as fine a band as I have ever heard. Drumming by the superlative Rogers Hawkins, bass by David Hood, piano by Spooner Oldham), and quite a few others.

The bassist didn’t yet know it (I’m guessing he does by now), but the guy playing electric bass on a lot of 1960’s Soul records was James Jamerson, the player Paul McCartney credits with opening his eyes to the possibilities of the instrument. My favorite bassist, bar none. James plays on "What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted" by Jimmy Ruffin (Joan Osborne does a great version of the song in the documentary film on the Motown house band---The Funk Brothers), one of my three all-time favorite songs (the other two being "God Only Knows", and either "The Weight", "A Whiter Shade Of Pale", "Like A Rolling Stone", or "No Time To Cry" the third). On "WBOTB" James employs the greatest use of inversion I have ever heard. It raises the hair on my head!

@bdp24 A lot of interesting stuff there.

I love James Jamerson.  The way he plays the fifth on so many chords in “What Becomes of the Broken Hearted (just such a great, great song) always bugged me, to be honest.  The fifth note on pop music bass often makes me go, “hey, whaddya doin’? Play the root!” This is not necessarily my feeling as a matter of course, but I remember the first time I heard the song wondering a) was he making a mistake b) why was he ruining this tremendous song?  My feelings have softened on that since.  He’s clearly an all time pop bass player.

I love all of those ‘50s-early ‘60s groups and all those songwriters you mentioned. I’ve got all them groups on wax and those early pressings sound really good.

I loved reading Carole King’s autobiography where she mentioned the time she met the Beatles at a party at the height of Beatlemania. She had heard that Paul and John had said in the press that they wanted to be the British version of Goffin/King.  She said Ringo and George were nice, when she met Paul, he was nice and mentioned how much they loved her songs, even citing specific songs and artists.  She tried to introduce herself to John, surrounded by a gaggle of young ladies, looking stoned.  He was so rude to her she just ended up leaving.

One time I noticed a video rental store some 15 years ago (in the whitest small town you could imagine) had an “urban” section.  When I looked at the movies in the “urban” section, it was all movies like “Friday” or whatever; movies with all-black casts.  I couldn’t believe it.  I didn’t know whether to laugh at the absurdity of the inexplicable racism or complain to the manager.  Ridiculous.