Recently reflecting rather gleefully on the second half of my first century, I felt exactly one twinge of regret. The Motown era is over.
Of course, it's been over for some time. Diana Ross is now officially deranged. Smokey Robinson seems to have gone the Vegas route, and the Miracles are no more. The Four Tops are no longer four, or on top. Stevie Wonder flashes his brilliance about once every couple of years. And the Jackson 5--well, it's now basically the Jackson 1, and his nose is missing.
Plus, I spent last year in the company of some very precocious 7th and 8th graders who not only didn't know what "records" were, but had never heard of Motown. Am I the only one who believes that "My Girl" and "Tears of a Clown" should be a part of every budding teen's curriculum?
Anyways, as far as I'm concerned, the Temptations were Motown. Check out the video...isn't it the coolest, slickest, sexiest thing you've seen in years? Those handsome lads in sharkskin were my introduction to poetry. Their songs were lyrical, their songs told the bestest boy-meet-girl-boy-loses-girl-boy-begs-relentlessly stories, their songs were where I first learned that life could sound pretty damned good.
But the modern-day Temps, full of imposters and also-rans, are simply a hollow whisper of the original. From left to right in the opening moment of the YouTube clip--Melvin Franklin, the bassman, was the most recent to die, of heart failure; Eddie Kendricks succumbed to lung cancer; Otis Williams is the only original Temp still alive; Paul Williams committed suicide and David Ruffin died in a Philly crack house. Damn.
So what kind of a Motown baby am I? Obsessed. I''m madly obsessed with Otis Williams, because he's all that's left, because he represents a time when everything was starkly choreographed and poured into passionate little stanzas. Love, passion, deceit, heartbreak, all of it trapped in a glistening black disc, released by the plop of a needle, and played over and over again. And a little colored girl on the west side of Chicago listened, and felt the song in everything.
I want to grab hold to the moment that began this, the moment when I felt that poetry could tell it all. That's why I'm the gal at the jukebox, wailing every Motown song long and aloud, trying to hold onto something that slipping away.
Am I crazy? Is it just me?
Patricia Smith (she/her) has been called “a testament to the power of words to change lives.” She is...
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