Authorship Roles in Popular Music

Issues and Debates

Ron Moy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317672739
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

Authorship Roles in Popular Music applies the critical concept of auteur theory to popular music via different aspects of production and creativity. Through critical analysis of the music itself, this book contextualizes key concepts of authorship relating to gender, race, technology, originality, uniqueness, and genius and raises important questions about the cultural constructions of authenticity, value, class, nationality, and genre. Using a range of case studies as examples, it visits areas as diverse as studio production, composition, DJing, collaboration, performance and audience. This book is an essential introduction to the critical issues and debates surrounding authorship in popular music. It is an ideal resource for students, researchers, and scholars in popular musicology and cultural studies.

1 THE STUDIO/LABEL AS AUTEUR

DOI: 10.4324/9781315770550-1

To begin the investigation into the concept of authorship, this chapter will initially explore some of the most nebulous areas related to the topic, such as time, space and place. These aspects will be critically grounded through an in-depth exploration of the output of the Tamla Motown record label (and associated contributors) during the period of its greatest critical and commercial impact (around 1964–1972). In addition, a comparative analysis of the work of the Invictus/Hot Wax studio (a contemporary and rival of Motown) and of the later British label PWL (itself evidently closely modeled on the Motown modus operandi) will further the debates into authorship and aesthetics.

Over the past couple of decades, Tamla Motown has been a fertile field of study for both popular music fans and academic researchers. Existing written sources range from the biographical and the hagiographic through the technological and musicological (by way of overview, see Early, 2004; George, 2003; Licks, 1989; Lodder, 2005; Posner, 2002; Smith, 1999; Werner, 1999). Such texts give the reader a comprehensive historical overview of the label, and that story does not need repeating here. What most accounts also share is an interest in what is generally referred to as the “Motown Sound”. A mythology has been established that states that a relatively small family of musicians, writers, producers and business staff overseen by Berry Gordy Jr. all contributed to the construction of a recognizable and unique style or subgenre of music. This was integrally linked to a modest recording studio situated at 2648 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit known as “Hitsville U.S.A.” (Licks, 1989: 13). In a sense, this studio and its label are granted authorial status. Indeed, in broader terms, Richard James Burgess notes that “some contracts refer to the label as the record producer or the producer” (2013: 1), so our first area of research must explore the process whereby a specific location and business organization can be vouchsafed a status granted to very few others in the field of popular music.

The Space and the Place

The Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin popularized two concepts applicable to the explorations of this chapter. Bakhtin helped popularize the terms “chronotope” and “dialogic” (see Morris, 1994). While predating Motown (and not relating to popular music), the critical application of these concepts helps to account for, and also problematize, the authorial specificity of Motown. In short, a chronotope is a connection between time and space or “the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed” (Bakhtin, cited in Morris, 1994: 184). These two elements of time and space do not exist in isolation, but for Bakhtin, every utterance or act of creativity must exhibit interconnectedness between time and space.

We must be careful to acknowledge the constructed nature of the chronotope and briefly to note some of its exceptions. Holm-Hudson has talked about chronotopes that effectively “reach forward” in some knowingly “retro” recordings when he refers to the work of Todd Rundgren, who can “invoke the authorial qualities of another time or space”, whether it be simulations of the Motown Sound or the Beatles (2014). Another musical polymath, Roy Wood, painstakingly evoked a large number of past eras on his recordings with the Move, Electric Light Orchestra, Wizzard and on solo recordings. This historical challenge to the linear chronotope could also be seen as a factor in the tribute band phenomenon, which will be referred to in another chapter.

Although Bakhtin developed the theory of the chronotope to help explain generic developments in epic literary forms, his claims that no one factor can be isolated from another and that creative agency cannot be removed from social contexts provides us with a pluralistic model that allows for scholars to move beyond an overreliance upon strictly textual or contextual constraints. The chronotope model encourages an exploration of genre, which, in popular music, is another concept that pushes us to bridge the gap between text and context. Bakhtin’s notions of the importance of the reader in determining meaning also predate the postwar critical developments exploring the role of the author, already outlined in the Introduction.

How far can Bakhtin’s theories of time and space go in helping us comprehend constructions such as the Motown Sound?

Gerald Early (2004) documents the importance of Detroit in the section of his book entitled “The Midwest as Musical Mecca and the Rise of Rhythm and Blues”. In terms of geography, as one of the principal destinations for African Americans escaping the poverty and racism of the Deep South, Detroit is clearly very important, but then so is Chicago and, to an extent, St. Louis, Kansas City or any other large conurbation that is situated near the Great Lakes or on the banks of rivers such as the Missouri and the Mississippi. Detroit, it is said, was “a real music town” (Williams, cited in Early, 2004: 67). However, we must ask, what major North American city was not? Detroit had blues, jazz, gospel, R&B, classical, pop and opera—but so did many others. Early is correct in situating Detroit in the vast region of the Midwest; one that, at least in broad terms, was less racist, less racially segregated and less conservative than the Deep South (however, this is all relative; see Early, 2004: 14–16, George, 2003: 8–16 and Posner, 2002: 6 for accounts of Detroit’s history of segregation, race riots, etc.). In other words, ethnomusical crossovers may have been more achievable, allowing for jazz, in particular, to blossom in a sometimes interracial manner; although, more rigid, regional racial segregation did not preclude the success of FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to give just one example. However, there is little that is specific to Detroit that allows for Motown to come into being. Notwithstanding this conclusion, Gordy himself claimed to have adapted automobile assembly line techniques to his own company, in terms of standardization and quality control. Also, in the years before the remix became central to dance culture, the quality control process at Motown was already often rejecting mixes on the basis of unsuitability (Posner, 2002: 83).

Certainly, Detroit’s connection to huge companies such as Ford and General Motors does set it apart from other cities in the US, but only to a limited extent. This process raises “the apparent dichotomy of commerce versus creativity” (Negus and Pickering, 2004: 46). However, for these two authors, drawing upon sources and arguments that move beyond the somewhat simplistic positions constructed by many, including Theodor Adorno, commerce and creativity are not only “indistinguishable … in the modern economy” (Ibid: 47), but the commercial imperative actually encourages, or even inspires, creativity. We will return to the importance of Gordy ahead.

Let us now turn our attention to the space rather than the place. As well as anecdotal accounts of the actual recording space in Detroit, we must consider other contributory elements such as technology, in addition to aspects of musicianship, composition and arrangement, and ethnicity. First, all accounts reference the relatively cramped size of the two acoustic spaces, leading perhaps to its nickname, the Snakepit—alluding to the serpent-like trail of leads and wires that the players had to accommodate. In addition, the limited space encouraged the direct input of the bass guitar into the mixing desk and the small number of microphones employed to record the drum kit. Licks stated that until about 1963, “a used vintage 1939 Western Electric recording console” was the only mixing desk available to the studio (1989: 16). According to Lodder (2005), most Motown recordings from around 1964 included a string section, or small orchestra, in the backing track, which would have been overdubbed at another time, in another space. However, there is nothing unique to Motown in any of these practices. Thus, if we are looking for authorial input from the studio space, we are entering territory that is, at best, unpersuasive and, at worst, mythological or deluding. This is not to say that certain studio spaces cannot contain a degree of sonic individuality—certainly no British attempts to create a soul sound close to Motown existed in the mid-1960s, and none of Al Green’s soul tracks recorded by Hi Records in Memphis can be mistaken for Detroit’s Motown Sound—but rather that the degree itself is difficult to quantify. Thus, the chronotope can provide us with a critical framework but not in any definitive sense. This authorial dilemma will be investigated further when we consider the actual recordings below. In addition, studio sounds can be copied, which means that we can only confer authorial status upon a space if we base our argument upon notions of originality or historical precedent—rather restricted parameters, some would say.

Before turning to these actual recordings, it may be beneficial to map out, at least in broad terms, the assumed or assigned mythical unique characteristics of the most archetypical Motown recordings of its golden age. However, the generalized nature of these characteristics must always be recognized. Many Motown tracks fulfill all the criteria listed below, but others far fewer (see also Borthwick and Moy, 2004: 12–14).

1. An overall paucity of blues-based progressions such as the standard tonic-dominant-subdominant model employed in the twelve-bar blues progression or song structure.
2. The relative lack of slow (i.e., below 80 bpm) tempo. Even Motown ballads tended to include an implicit rhythmic danceable component that separated them from mainstream pop ballads (listen, for instance, to songs such as “Tracks of My Tears” [1965] or “My Girl” [1964]).
3. Song structures often favoured the Tin Pan Alley style of composition featuring middle-eights, key changes and structural development over and above the simple verse/refrain pattern of traditional blues or gospel.
4. The vast majority of Motown singles from 1964 feature at least a string section, if not a small orchestra.
5. Singles tended to be deliberately mixed for transistor radio reception. This involved the incorporation and prominent mixing of treble elements such as tambourines, glockenspiel/xylophones and hi-hats, with playback on small speakers at a certain point in the postproduction process.
6. Bass lines rarely employ the blues’ “walking bass style” (moving from and returning to chordal root notes via crochet intervals, or what Licks refers to as the “two beat, root-fifth patterns” [1989: 12]). Instead, bass lines are often freer, employing jazz style embellishments; the incorporation of fourth, eighth and sixteenth interval notes; and the adoption of chromatic spacing and runs.
7. The drumbeat would often invert the standard pop kick/snare pattern, with the snare operating a metronomic crochet beat rather than only emphasizing two points in the bar. This then left the kick to be more syncopated than in standard pop or R&B styles.
8. Instrumental solos tended to be short and economic, and often employed the tenor or baritone saxophone as the instrument of choice.
9. The rhythm guitar would often emphasize alternate snare beats by utilizing the simple damped, chop stroke, resulting in the instrument being essentially percussive rather than melodic.
10. Most Motown session musicians came from a jazz, or even a classical (see Lodder, 2005: 22), rather than a blues/R&B background. Certainly, in comparison to most African American musicians working on commercial recordings in the period, this made them unusual.
11. The quality control process, culminating in Friday meetings where mixes and releases were discussed, accepted or dismissed, was certainly an unusual, if not a unique, facet of Motown’s staff.
12. The widespread, if inconsistent, adoption of unusual instruments, many from the classical world, such as piccolo, celeste, theremin, flute and harpsichord, set the Motown subgenre apart from many of its rivals.

All of these criteria, or musical tendencies, do bolster claims for an identifiable, distinct, authored sound. Allan Moore termed Motown recordings “an identifiable sound world … instruments migrating from one layer to another … notable for the absence of a prominent electric guitar” (Moore, 2012: 27). In addition, we might note the importance of the wide sound spectrum. With guitars often inhabiting the percussive treble register, the midrange was often filled by organ, piano and orchestration. Furthermore, the often intensely “brittle”, “sizzling” (I am adopting Virgil Moorefield’s terms here, 2010: 22), “tinny” top-end qualities imbued with reverberation, echo and highly mixed vibraphones and tambourines were well balanced by a prominent bass guitar and baritone saxophone. Roland Barthes spoke of the inadequacy of the adjective as a tool for musical analysis (Roland Barthes, 1977), and certainly, as listeners or analysts, we must never preclude the possible clouding of the issues by subjective, assumed notions of authenticity, mythology and ideology. However, there does come a point where the use of symbolic signifiers seems unavoidable. Music is not brittle or tinny in a formal sense, but such terms do communicate meaning to a reading community. Motown’s productions, certainly in the mid-1960s, evoke (or encourage) a real sense of drama and tension, at least in this reader, but also for countless others. But in a sense, Motown’s authorial status remains negotiated, and thus hegemonic, rather than immanent or “given”.

The Musicians and the Controversies

In addition to the importance stressed by many commentators upon place and space, perhaps even more fundamental to the construction of the Motown Sound has been the significance placed upon a small group of session musicians generally now known as the Funk Brothers, who for Edmonds are “the studio band who were the bedrock of every Motown recording” (2001: 59). Were this to have been the case, bearing in mind the huge volume of releases, let alone recordings undertaken by Motown, it is likely that at least a few of the musicians listed below went without any sleep for periods of at least weeks, if not months. In addition, despite several commentators’ claim that the studio operated more or less around the clock in its prime, even jobbing musicians have to take a break. Licks only slightly modifies this exaggeration by commenting that the bassist James Jamerson “during the heyday of Motown … played on almost every record” (1989: 78). Even given the production-line professionalism and long hours regularly undertaken in the studio, this statement is again open to challenge. What is more important is what such claims tell us about the mythmaking process and its relationship to authorship. In the period 1964–1972, the most prominent of Motown’s session players were said to be: In addition, and even more anonymous in terms of wide recognition, Howard Priestley claimed that the female backing singers known as the Andantes may have made a contribution to up to twenty thousand sessions (2012). As with other contributing musicians, the Andantes had to wait until 1971 to receive a credit on a Motown album, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On.

1. Keyboards: Ivy Joe Hunter (and increasingly Earl van Dyke).
2. Drums: Benny Benjamin (and increasingly Uriel Jones), Richard “Pistol” Allen.
3. Guitar: Joe Messina, Eddie Willis, Robert White.
4. Bass: James Jamerson (later Bob Babbitt and Michael Henderson).
5. Percussion: Jack Ashford, Eddie ‘Bongo’ Brown.
6. Reeds: Dan Turner, Hank Cosby, Mike Terry.

In particular, the rhythm section of Benjamin and Jamerson was said to provide the unique bedrock of the Motown Sound, particularly between about 1964–1967, after which the increasingly unreliable behaviour of Benjamin led to Jones taking a more prominent role. Unlike within the authorial model developed by (and about) the meta genre of (white) rock, which placed great emphasis upon the band as the mythical construction unit (see Negus, 1992), within “black” soul, the emphasis rested far more upon producers and house session musicians; additional examples such as the Stax/Volt sound and the Hi Records sound bear out this distinction. Keyboard player Earl van Dyke shed significant light on the role of the Funk Brothers when he stated, “it was just a gig to us; all we wanted to do was play jazz” (Licks, 1989: 29). This suggests a journeyman approach by musicians more concerned about making a living than creating art—even though they (inadvertently?) managed to do both. Certainly, if one explores the role of the session musician throughout popular music, it ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The Studio/Label as Auteur
• 2 Gender and Degrees of Popular Music Authorship
• 3 The Singular and the Collective: The Writer as Auteur
• 4 The Interpreter as Auteur
• 5 The Producer/Remixer as Auteur
• 6 The Zeitgeist as Auteur: Contexts, Scenes, Technologies
• Coda: The Searcher and the Sought
• Index