Podcasts about scott b

Welcome to Episode 83 of Zion's Finest! This one is a bit of a sweaty episode, as Kenny provides an overview of the Top 8 from Adepticon and Sam gives an incredible review of "meta share," meaning how units were represented in progressive stages of the cut from swiss to the final match between Scott B. and Matt B. It's an amazing discussion that you will love.Links for Swiss Day 1, Swiss Day 2, Day 1 Top 16, and Day 2 Top 16.Join the Slack!

Alcoholics Anonymous Discussion Meeting: We are a weekly podcast where we interview Alcoholics Anonymous members on their journey through the program. We discuss recovery, spirituality, and other sober related topics. Details here: https://linktr.ee/tmatmlive.

Réécoutez True House Takeover by Lenny Fontana avec DJ Paul Scott B.O.P du samedi 27 novembre 2024

Do you need a veterans decal for your truck?  Send a message to workhound to get yours today!

Scott Bärlocher aus Würenlos hat gute Chancen bei den Olympischen Spielen in Paris teilzunehmen. Der Schweizer Doppelvierer hat sich qualifiziert und Bärlocher hat das harte teaminterne Auswahlverfahren im Winter geschafft. Weitere Themen:  * Nach dem Tod eines 18-jährigen mit Autismus vor drei Jahren läuft nach wie vor ein Strafverfahren gegen Verantwortliche der Psychiatrischen Dienste Aargau.  * Ein Mann überfällt mit einer Pistole den Volg in Windisch, flüchtet danach aber ohne Beute.  * Die FC Aarau Frauen schaffen, was lange Zeit nicht für möglich gehalten wurde, und qualifizieren sich für die Playoffs der besten acht Teams. * Der FC Baden verliert erwartungsgemäss gegen Tabellenführer Sion mit 0:3.  * Volley Schönenwerd gewinnt das erste Spiel im Playoff-Final 3:1.  * Die Erfolgsgeschichte des Weissstorchs ist Thema eines neuen Buchs des Solothurner Lorenz Heer. Er zeigt auf, wie das Tier seine Lebensweise in den letzten Jahren teilweise komplett geändert hat.

Join us for an engaging conversation with Scott B. Johnson, Chief Strategy Officer at St. Luke's Health Corporation, as he shares insights into his background and perspectives on healthcare in 2024. Scott discusses his excitement and concerns for the future, along with the essential traits required for healthcare leaders to thrive in the coming years.

Join us for an engaging conversation with Scott B. Johnson, Chief Strategy Officer at St. Luke's Health Corporation, as he shares insights into his background and perspectives on healthcare in 2024. Scott discusses his excitement and concerns for the future, along with the essential traits required for healthcare leaders to thrive in the coming years.

A new MP3 sermon from Sandown Free Presbyterian Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Service of Thanksgiving for the Life of Thomas Richard Scott B.E.M. Speaker: Rev. Garth Wilson Broadcaster: Sandown Free Presbyterian Church Event: Funeral Service Date: 2/24/2024 Bible: 2 Timothy 4:6-8 Length: 94 min.

Can someone be too smart or important to get sober in A.A.? My guest, Scott B. had his Ph.D. in neurobiology and an accelerating career in medical research to dispel any notions of being an alcoholic or drug addict. His superior intelligence, unflappable ego, and iron-will would shield him from the realities of a life rapidly falling apart around him. But his journey into the dark regions of substance abuse ultimately brought him to his knees as a ravaged and demoralized subject of King Alcohol and Lady Cocaine. Increasingly frequent use quickened the downward spiral of his life and career. Intelligence and will power alone were not enough to save him. Teetering on the edge of the abyss, a single lifeline, in the form of a crafty intervention by his colleagues and friends, was thrown to him. Clinging onto it as only the hopeless can, he finally let that lifeline pull him into treatment and A.A. After nearly 33 years of sobriety, Scott gratefully reflects on that crucial turning point that grew into a brilliant career, a fulfilling life, and daily service to others. His wonderous story is one that needs to be told. More importantly, it's one that needs to be heard by anyone, anywhere who reaches out for help. If you've enjoyed my AA Recovery Interviews series and my Big Book podcast, have a listen to Lost Stories of the Big Book, 30 Original Stories Missing from the 3rd and 4th Editions of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's an engaging audiobook I narrated to bring these stories to life for AA members who've never seen them. These timeless testimonials were originally cut to make room for newer stories in the 3rd and 4th Editions. But their vitally important messages of hope are as meaningful today as when they were first published. Many listeners will hear these stories for the first time. Lost Stories of the Big Book is available on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes. It's also available as a Kindle book and in Paperback from Amazon if you'd like to read along with the audio. I also invite you to check out my latest audio book, “Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered From Alcoholism”. This is the word-for-word, cover-to-cover reading of the First Edition of the Big Book, published in 1939. It's a comfortable, meaningful, and engaging way to listen to the Big Book anytime, anyplace. Have a free listen at Audible, i-Tunes, or Amazon. [This is an encore of Episode 4, originally released January 6, 2021].  The original episode is available on this podcast by searching for or scrolling down to Episode 4 on your podcast app or by visiting aarecoveryinterviews.com. [Disclaimer: AA Recovery Interviews podcast strictly adheres to AA's 12 Traditions and all General Service Office guidelines for safe-guarding anonymity on-line. I pay all podcast production costs and no one receives financial gain from the show. AA Recovery Interviews and my guests do not speak for or represent AA at-large. This podcast is simply my way of giving back to AA that which has been so freely given to me. -Howard L.]

Scott B sits down with us to chat about his new ska E.P., what it took to make it, his love of ska, and so much more! Find it on Bandcamp here! Follow him on instagram @scott_b_ska_bees Music: Friday Night Wednesday Morning Bernie's Is A Target Now Bullshit Detector

Scott B., Celebrate the Morning, FL by 2 Sober Chicks - Lisa & Julie

We talk journals for specific purposes (aka a good excuse to start another journal) and Ted shares his books and stationery explorations in Charlotte, NC. And listener Scott B. builds on our discussion of refilling Pilot pens. Main Street Books, Davidson, NC BOOKS!Good Postage Elisa GabbertFine Point CommunicationsWrite Notepads Paper Journal Banana

AA member Scott B. shares his story.

Richard Van Camp & Scott B. Henderson on their graphic novel, A Blanket of Butterflies, Luna Li on Fight Night by Miriam Toews and SK Ali on Love From Mecca to Medina, and more.

Scott and Dhammarato talk about the structure of good practice, which does not involve going on retreat or becoming a statue. #sitting #repetition #sukha Buddhist Symbolism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_symbolism Sayagyi U Ba Khin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayagyi_U_Ba_Khin S. N. Goenka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._N._Goenka See the video version of this call on YouTube. ►YouTube Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEHczILJwgw Weekly Sangha calls, everyone is welcome.  ►The Sangha US - https://join.skype.com/uyYzUwJ3e3TO ►The Sangha UK - https://join.skype.com/w6nFHnra6vdh To meet Dhamma friends, hang out, or volunteer—join our Discord Sangha. Everyone is welcome. ►Discord - https://discord.gg/epphTGY 00:00:00 The actual teachings of the Buddha 00:01:45 Three symbols of early Buddhism; U Ba Khin, sitting meditation, and retreats 00:08:07 The word “meditation” does not appear in any sutta; the Buddha taught ānāpānasati; brahmaviharas  00:11:30 The body should be comfortable; listen to your body; sit upright 00:33:52 Knowingly doing something wholesome over and over again, not endurance 00:38:50 Practice often: six ten minute sittings; two types of sati 00:49:40 Ānāpānasati outside a formal sit; wakey, wakey; intentionally breathing in long… 00:56:00 The breath and the thing you're doing; wake up and make a change: samma sankappa 01:00:39 More frequently rather than longer; developing continuity: congratulate, nourish, nurture 01:02:56 Significant change in ten minutes

This week, Film Comment Co-Deputy Editor Clinton Krute takes a look at the wealth of cinematic delights on offer this fall across repertory calendars, both in person in New York City and online. To guide him through the thicket of newly rediscovered gems, lost classics, and thematic programs, Clint invited three experts—critic and filmmaker Gina Telaroli; Inney Prakash, programmer and founder of the Prismatic Ground festival; and Steve Macfarlane, critic and programer at Spectacle Theater and MoMA—to discuss some of the series from the next few months that they're most excited about. These includes Anthology Film Archives' ongoing Imageless Films series, the upcoming Hugo Fregonese and Beth and Scott B retrospectives at MoMA, the online series Spectral Grounds: Black Experimental Film, and much more. Check the links in the show notes for more information:

Canary Cry News Talk #528 - 08.29.2022 - Recorded Live to Tape! JARED ATHANASIA - Black Rock Basil, Immortal Kushner, Cyborg Children, Ice Watching Harvard: Index of MSM Ownership (Harvard.edu)   HELLO HOOK 7:31 V / 5:10 P Black Rock City comes alive as thousands of revelers rock up in their RVs for week-long Burning Man festival after two-year COVID hiatus (DailyMail)  → Breaking in Iraq   DAY/PERSONAL/EXEC 21:21 V / 19:00 P   FLIPPY UPDATE 29:59 V / 27:38 P Skiing and curling robots shine at World Robot Conference (CGTN)    TRANSHUMAN 35:04 V / 32:43 P Clip: Jared Kushner says we will be first generation to live forever   CYBORG 48:25 V / 46:04 P Schoolgirl, eight, who lost an eye to cancer aged two reveals she's upgraded her blue prosthetic lens to a sparkly pink one - and her friends say she looks 'like a superhero' (DailyMail)    BREAK 1: TREASURE 57:58 V / 55:37 P   CHINA 1:12:12 V / 1:09:51 P Chinas youth jobless rate hits a record high of 19.9% amid Covid pandemic (Biz Insider) CLIMATE CHANGE 1:26:33 V / 1:26:12 P Extreme China heatwave could lead to global chaos and food shortages (NZ Herald)    BREAK 2: TREASURE 2 1:33:40 V / 1:31:19 P   COVID/WACCINE 1:45:06 V / 1:42:45 P The Long Tail of Covid-19 Disinformation (NY Times/Aus) Bravo to the lockdown sceptics smeared and dismissed defending freedom (Telegraph UK)  Mercury Project (Rockefeller Foundation) (Archive) NCD, Non- Communicable Disease next big issue to solve (WEF)   BREAK 3: TALENT 2:36:10 V / 2:33:49 P   ANTARCTICA/BEING WATCHED 2:49:31 V / 2:47:10 P Dahua Technology Develops the First Electronic Security Project in Antarctica (Businesswire)   BREAK 4: TIME 2:56:34 V / 2:54:12 P END   This Episode was Produced By:   EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS Anonymous Doge** MORV** Sir Captain Redbeard Pirate King of the De-Moochers**   Producers Julie S, Kira O, Scott B, Runksmash, Sir Darrin Knight of Hungry Panda, Sir Casey the Shield Knight, Sir Scott Knight of Truth, Gail M   Audio Production Jonathan F Psalm40 Kalub   Visual Art Dame Allie of the Skillet Nation Sir Dove Knight of Rusbeltia   MICROFICTION Runksmash - Agent Smith stalks the dirt street, stepping past naked hippies and cyborgs, she knows her target is ahead, she can smell the toner in the air like bad aftershave. Then she sees him, he's talking to a man in a fake beard, which is crazy in this heat!   CLIP PRODUCER Emsworth, FaeLivrin, Epsilon   TIMESTAPERS Jackie U, Jade Bouncerson, Christine C, Pocojoyo   SOCIAL MEDIA DOERS Dame MissG of the OV and Deep Rivers   LINKS HELP JAM

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://thecitylife.org/2022/08/06/moma-presents-the-films-of-beth-b-and-scott-b/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/citylifeorg/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/citylifeorg/support

We're headed to Jeff's quadrant of the brack to listen to Scott B. take on Asha! How far can Asha make it in this hot seat bracket? Can Scott take down the PTE pro? Are you enjoying the show? www.patreon.com/ptebb Facebook: The Lounge: Fans of Pub Trivia Experience & Boozy Bracketology Twitter: @PubTriviaPod Instagram: Pub Trivia Experience PubTriviaExperience@gmail.com Don't forget – Leave us a 5 Star Rating and write us a review Enjoy The Show! And if you like the Pub Trivia Experience, be sure to check out our sister podcast, Boozy Bracketology!

These two contestants come out swinging! Join us as Scott takes on Katie in this head-to-head Hot Seat Challenge!   Are you enjoying the show? www.patreon.com/ptebb   Facebook: The Lounge: Fans of Pub Trivia Experience & Boozy Bracketology Twitter: @PubTriviaPod Instagram: Pub Trivia Experience PubTriviaExperience@gmail.com Don't forget – Leave us a 5 Star Rating and write us a review Enjoy The Show!

Interview with Scott G. Bruce, editor of THE PENGUIN BOOK OF DRAGONS.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/reading-and-writing-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Gregory and Justin welcome back acclaimed comic book artist Scott B. Henderson to talk about his return to full powers after a pandemic pause. You can find an excellent selection of Scott's work at https://www.portageandmainpress.com/Contributors/H/Henderson-Scott-B Follow the gang on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gmbchomichuk/ https://www.instagram.com/chasingartwork/ https://www.instagram.com/scotthendersonart/ GMB Chomichuk's online store https://gmbchomichuk.bigcartel.com Chasing Artwork's online store: https://society6.com/prints/chasingartwork Production: Dan Vadeboncoeur Titles: Jesse Hamel & Nick Smalley --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gmb-chomichuk/message

Canary Cry News Talk #446 - 02.14.2022  SATANICON DISORDER LINKTREE: CanaryCry.Party SHOW NOTES: CanaryCryNewsTalk.com CLIP CHANNEL: CanaryCry.Tube  SUPPLY DROP: CanaryCrySupplyDrop.com SUPPORT: CanaryCryRadio.com/Support MEET UPS: CanaryCryMeetUps.com Basil's other podcast: ravel  Gonz' YT: Facelikethesun Resurrection App Made by Canary Cry Producer: Truther Dating App   INTRO Skater boi Rams 23, Bengals 20   FLIPPY Scientists create cyborg fish powered by beating human heart cells (Gizmodo)   SATAN SatanCon in Scottsdale, AZ (12News) Report: lil Mossad   COVID19/I AM WACCINE Bill Gates backed Chinese rapid test company wins US FDA approval (The Star) Follow the Science? (NYT) Clip: Who chief scientist said “vaccine nationalism” caused deaths →Headline: Israeli hospital to be first to test Pfizer Omicron variant (Times of Israel)   TRUCKERS Clip: Trudeau to Truckers, “It's time to go home” Clip: Klaus Schwab, “penetrate cabinets” like Trudeau   Party Pitch///BREAK 1: Executive Producers, Paypal, Patrons///SPEAKPIPE   POLYTICKS CHINA Lecture at Pentagon, a case for Democratic Socialism (Institute for National Strategic Studies)   POLYTICS TRUMP Durham probe reveals Clinton corruption, Democrats want investigation (NY Post) → [Screenshots from Durham documents] → Trump said Clinton should be “put to death” (Independent)   POLYTICKS BIDEN RUSSIA Biden met with Putin, made firm stance (CNN) → Sunday: Biden talks to Zelensky, Ukraine (Kiyvpost) → Headline: The New World Disorder (WSJ Opinion) → Headline: Could Ukraine crisis lead to New World Order impact on Israel? (Jerusalem Post)   BREAK 2: Art, Reviews, Jingles, Meet Ups   WOKE OLYMPICS First Black Olympic Skeleton Athlete [popsugar, NBC, local hudson valley, pic 1, pic 2, pic search]   ANTARCTICA Why Scientists believe Apocalypse will break out on White Continent (The Saxon) ADDITIONAL STORIES: More Covid: Does the Queen have C19? (Telegraph) Fact Check: VAIDS is not a thing (Reuters) → Actual Lancet study (Lancet) What is the mysterious hum heard around the world (Financial Times) More in Japan did not take any time off, even after jab side effects (JP Times) $200 million factory that didn't produce single dose (Telegraph)   More Ukraine: Sullivan reiterates threat to Russia (WSJ)   Other stories: Lenin statue is loneliest statue in Antarctica (Hindustan Times) Report: Most people to spend at least an hour in Metaverse by 2026 (VentureBeat) Bill Gates connection with CCP is troubling (Just The News) 33 crashes in men's giant slalom (NBC) Japan to build first nuclear fusion plant (Kyodo News) PRODUCERS FOR EPISODE 446 Executive Sir Sigrah the Beast**   Supply Drop Nathan A - 33.33    Producers Sir Sammons Knight of the Fishes, puddin22, SpearsDesert, Scott B, HeatherSirRuss, Palmer B, JC, MORV, Sir Casey the Shield Knight, Gail M, Sir Scott Knight of Truth, William F, Demali M, Child of God, DrWhoDunDat, Runksmash, Veronica D, Jackie U   Timestamps: Mondays: Jackie U Wednesdays: Jade Bouncerson Fridays: Christine C   CLIP PRODUCER Emsworth   AUDIO PRODUCTION (Jingles, Iso, Music): Chester W Shiloc Psalm40   ART PRODUCTION (Drawing, Painting, Graphics): Dame Allie of the Skillet Nation Sir Dove Knight of Rusbeltia Jvela   CONTENT PRODUCTION (Microfiction etc.) Runksmash The Sentinel

Dr. Scott B Patten is a professor at the University of Calgary and one of the leading Psychiatric Epidemiologists in the world. Dr. Patten's research focuses on Major Depressive Disorders, and in this episode he talks about how machine learning is influencing his field, how the pandemic has impacted his work, as well as the research around how our mental health has been affected through the pandemic. 

(Reschedule from a few weeks ago) Tonight we are joined by director Scott B. Hanson of the movie BAD CANDY!

Canary Cry News Talk #424 - 12.17.2021  SUNSET RESET WEBSITE/SHOW NOTES: CanaryCryNewsTalk.com LINKTREE: CanaryCry.Party SUPPORT: CanaryCryRadio.com/Support MEET UPS: CanaryCryMeetUps.com ravel Podcast (Basil's other podcast) Facelikethesun Resurrection (Gonz' new YouTube channel) Truther Dating experiment   INTRO →Melania Trump NFT's (CNN) →Adidas NFT into the Metaverse Clip: Cat doing sit ups  Chinese Elon Musk doppelgänger, Deep Fake or Real? (NY Post) Elon Hair picture   FLIPPY Want Humans to Trust Robots? LET THEM DANCE! (Scientific American)   GREAT RESET/CHINA Justin Sun stepping down from Tron, permanent role rep Grenada in WTO (Grenada Now) → Grenada/China belt and road deal (Sept. 2018) → Tron/PRC partnership (Jan. 2021)   COVID19/I AM WACCINE CDC recommends Moderna/Pfizer over J&J shots (CNN) →NY hit hard by Omicron on top of Delta (Bloomberg Opinion) Actress hired to pretend to have C19, “not for propaganda” (Full Fact) →Biden says unwaxxinated will have winter of “Severe illness” (Barron's) Omicron and Delta can have a baby (DailyMail) ShillZilla Twitter Thread   Party Pitch  BREAK 1: Executive Producers, Paypal, Patrons   POLYTICKS NY bans natural gas, starting 2023 (QZ)   NEWSOM SCIENCE Rate of people moving to California precipitates (Yahoo)   PROPAGANDA School district increase security after TikTok videos with bomb threats (abc News)   BREAK 2: Art, Reviews, Jingles, Meet Ups   CYBERPANDEMIC Backdoor gives hackers complete control of federal agency network (ArsTechnica)   NEPHILIM UPDATE Drill Sergeant from Heavenly Hell (DeviantArt)   ADDITIONAL STORIES: Mind controlled robots closer (TechXplore) Deep Fake: Long Island man faces felony charges for deep faking on adult sites (CBS Local) Peloton deletes ad after actor gets me too'd (Variety) Inside wall-streets Gen Z culture war (Insider)   PRODUCERS ep. 424:   Executive Producer Carson D**   Ass. Executive Producer Dame Lynn Lady of the Lakes* HeatherSirRuss* Mark D* MORV* Joe T*   2022 calendar producers 20.22 monthly Ashley B Natalie B Michelle W Maureen K   Producers Gingah M, SpearsDesert, Jackie U, Sir Aaron J Knight of the Cute Little Piggies,Dee, JC, Scott B, Sir Scott Knight of Truth, Sir Sammons Knight of the Fishes, Sir Casey the Shield Knight, Palmer B, DrWhoDunDat, Amanda P, Veronica D, Gail M, Runksmash   CCNT PATREON:  Caleb   TIMESTAMPS: Jade Bouncerson    JINGLES: Runksmash Jagged777   ART: Dame Allie of the Skillet Nation Sir Dove, Knight of Rustbeltia Sir Casey the Shield Knight   MICROFICTION Runksmash - As Kodi does his business Gonz remembers the old days, just analyzing the news. He takes out his phone and texts Basil, “Let's just publish the game's finale as is, and start CCNT again.” He hesitates but clicks send. Their monitor gets an alert.

Welcome to Strongwriters on Songwriting (Inside the Song) with your host, Eric Bjarnason Martin and Scott Bradshaw. Each series of this podcast will center around a different theme with highly accomplished songwriters as they delve of into their songwriting process. On each episode, we will have an opportunity to listen to and explore a few of the featured artists songs. In this first series, Teachers, Mentors and Friends, E. B. has the opportunity to interview his co-host Scott B. He has been a fixture in the Toronto music scene for over three decades, both as a band member and a solo act. His band, Scott B. Sympathy, recorded five critically acclaimed albums, of which the first two have recently been re-released.

This episode of The HolloTalk Podcast is a special one. This is our 50th episode and we truly cannot thank the guests and the supporters of The HolloTalk Podcast enough for helping us get to this point. We also provided a dope episode with our guy Scott B. King. We discuss Scott's brand “Envy Of New York”, their mission, his influences for Envy and where Scott sees the brand moving forward. We again want to thank you all for the love and the support you've all have given The HolloTalk Podcast and we will continue to bring amazing content. Thank You and We Love You All! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

There is a new epidemic in America disproportionately affecting minority communities and sweeping the internet. Scott B from Babblin’ & Dabblin’ zooms in to discuss this and much much more. Babblin’ & Dabblin’ is available wherever you get podcasts. Shop shirtcaviar.com and use promo code OGA to save 10% on your purchase.

Co-hosts Lisa Noble and Beth Lyons chat about Indigenous texts that span the K-12 education continuum and ways that educators have integrated these texts into their daily practice. This episode was inspired by A Day to Listen- 12 Hours of Indigenous-led Radio Programming on June 30th. https://downiewenjack.ca/a-day-to-listen/Texts Mentioned In This EpisodeReclaimed by Jared Martineau (Lisa incorrectly called it Unreserved which is a different CBC show with Falen Johnson) A Sitting In St. James by Rita Williams-GarciaI Lost My Talk by Rita Joe, Illustrated by Pauline YoungThe Ecstasy of Rita Joe by George RygaI'm Finding My Talk by Rebecca Thomas, Illustrated by Pauline YoungFirst Nations Child and Family Caring Society- Spirit BearFacing History and OurselvesTruth and Reconciliation Commission of CanadaAuthor Monique Gray SmithWhen We Were Alone by David A RobertsonPowwow by Karen Pheasant-NeganigwaneBirdsong by Julie Flett (and all books by Julie Flett)My Day with Yayah by Nicola Campbell, Illustrated by Julie FlettBoard books series by Neepin AugerAmerican Indians in Children's Literature site by Debbie ReeseNibi Is Water by Joanne RobertsonWe Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom, illustrated by Michaela GoadeMedicine Wheel Education publications- The Circle of Caring and Sharing, The Eagle Feather, Gifts from Raven, Trudy's Healing Stone, The Hoop Dancer's TeachingsBraiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall KimmererWe Are All Treaty People by Maurice Switzer, illustrated by Charley HerbertBarren Grounds by David A RobertsonTales from Big Spirit series by David A RobertsonA Girl Called Echo by Katherena VermetteSurviving the City by Tasha SpillettSiha Tooskin Knows Series by Charlene Bearhead and Wilson Bearhead | illustrated by Chloe Bluebird MustoochThis Place: 150 Years Retold by Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, Sonny Assu, Brandon Mitchell, Rachel and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley, David A. Robertson, Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair, Jen Storm, Richard Van Camp, Katherena Vermette, Chelsea Vowel | illustrated by Tara Audibert, Kyle Charles, GMB Chomichuk, Natasha Donovan, Scott B. Henderson, Ryan Howe, Andrew Lodwick, Jen Storm | colour by Scott A. Ford, Donovan YaciukThe Marrow Thieves by Cherie DimalineThe Break by Katherena VermetteIf I Go Missing by Brianna Jonnie with Nahanni Shingoose, art by NshannacappoSon of a Trickster by Eden RobinsonFive Little Indians by Michelle GoodSeven Fallen Feathers by Tanya TalagaThere There by Tommy Orange#NotYourPrincess- Voices of Native American Women by Edited by Lisa Charleyboy & Mary Beth LeatherdaleGlass Beads by Dawn DumontThe Next Chapter with Shelagh RogersOne Dish, One Mic- podcastTelling Our Twisted Histories- podcastStorykeepers: Let's Talk Indigenous Books- podcastSplit Tooth by Tanya TagaqMoon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig RiceIn This Together: Fifteen Stories of Truth and Reconciliation by Danielle Metcalfe-ChenailIndigenous Writes by Chelsea Vowel21 Things You Didn't Know About the Indian Act by Bob JosephIndigenous Peoples AtlasAnti-racist Educator Reads hosted by Colinda Clyne

Stakeholder Spotlight on their sports, their opinion, their views, their story - Scott B

Neha Nanda, MD (Medical Director of Infection Prevention and Antimicrobial Stewardship, Keck Medicine of USC) is joined by Scott B. Laurie (President and Chief Executive Officer, The Olson Company) and Richard K. Green (Director, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate) to discuss the ongoing recovery efforts from COVID-19, how organizations might manage returning to the office, and when everyday life has a chance of achieving a new normal. Nanda also reviews rules of thumb for mask-wearing as well as what vaccine hesitancy may mean for California's herd immunity.   More: https://lusk.usc.edu/perspectives

It’s our 5th anniversary episode and this time we’re discussing Bad Book Reading Habits! Sticky notes, bookmarks, tagging and tracking, borrowing more library books than we can read, books on display in video calls, reading books out of order, throwing books in the garbage, and more! Plus: Which host is a book goblin? (The answer may surprise you.) You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast delivery system. In this episode Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | RJ Edwards Media We Mentioned If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino, translated by William Weaver The copy of the book mentioned that had marginalia Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed Acquired Traits by Raissa Berg The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern Goodnight Tweetheart by Teresa Medeiros ttyl by Lauren Myracle Links, Articles, and Things Marginalia (Wikipedia) WereBear (Wikipedia) Convergence (Wikipedia) Goblin (Dungeons & Dragons) (Wikipedia) Pathfinder Roleplaying Game (Wikipedia) Sequel Rights: A Review of Locus Reviews Twitterature (Wikipedia) 30 books by Indigenous authors published in the past 5 years Since 2020, we’ve been sharing lists of books by authors of colour for every new genre we read - and with our non-genre episodes, sharing lists for the genres we covered in our early episodes. The early episode we’re creating a booklist for this month is Episode 009: Aboriginal / Indigenous / First Nations. Our booklist for this episode features works by Indigenous authors that have been published since that episode came out in 2016. Fiction Bawaajigan: Stories of Power edited by Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler Indians on Vacation by Thomas King There There by Tommy Orange Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead Non-Fiction A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliott 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality by Bob Joseph In My Own Moccasins: A Memoir of Resilience by Helen Knott Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis & Inuit Issues in Canada by Chelsea Vowel From Where I Stand: Rebuilding Indigenous Nations for A Stronger Canada by Jody Wilson-Raybould Young Adult The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline Fire Song by Adam Garnet Jones Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson Strangers by David Alexander Robertson Hearts Unbroken by Cynthia Leitich Smith Picture Books Bowwow Powwow : Bagosenjige-niimi'idim by Brenda J. Child, Jonathan Thunder, and Gordon Jourdain You Hold Me Up by Monique Gray Smith and Danielle Daniel Awâsis and the World-Famous Bannock by Dallas Hunt and Amanda Strong We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom and Michaela Goade Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story by Kevin Noble Maillard and Juana Martinez-Neal Poetry NDN Coping Mechanisms: Notes from the Field by Billy-Ray Belcourt Holy Wild by Gwen Benaway From Turtle Island to Gaza by David Groulx it was never going to be okay by jaye simpson Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq Comics This Place: 150 Years Retold Dakwäkãda Warriors by Cole Pauls Surviving the City by Tasha Spillett and Natasha Donovan Pemmican Wars by Katherena Vermette and Scott B. Henderson Carpe Fin: A Haida Manga by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas Give us feedback! Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read! Check out our Tumblr, follow us on Twitter or Instagram, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email! Join us again on Tuesday, April 6th we’ll be talking about the genre of Psychological Horror! (With a special guest co-host!) Then on Tuesday, April 20th we’ll be giving an update on non-podcast media we’ve been reading, watching, and otherwise experiencing.

Episode one hundred and sixteen of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Where Did Our Love Go?” by the Supremes, and how the “no-hit Supremes” became the biggest girl group in history. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “She’s Not There” by the Zombies. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ —-more—-   Resources As usual, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode.  For Motown-related information in this and other Motown episodes, I’ve used the following resources: Where Did Our Love Go? The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound by Nelson George is an excellent popular history of the various companies that became Motown.  To Be Loved by Berry Gordy is Gordy’s own, understandably one-sided, but relatively well-written, autobiography. Women of Motown: An Oral History by Susan Whitall is a collection of interviews with women involved in Motown. I Hear a Symphony: Motown and Crossover R&B by J. Andrew Flory is an academic look at Motown. The Motown Encyclopaedia by Graham Betts is an exhaustive look at the people and records involved in Motown’s thirty-year history. How Sweet It Is by Lamont Dozier and Scott B. Bomar is Dozier’s autobiography, while Come and Get These Memories by Brian and Eddie Holland and Dave Thompson is the Holland brothers’. And Motown Junkies is an infrequently-updated blog looking at (so far) the first 694 tracks released on Motown singles. Girl Groups by John Clemente contains potted biographies of many groups of the era. The Supremes biography I mention in the podcast is The Supremes by Mark Ribowsky, which seems factually accurate but questionable in its judgments of people. I also used this omnibus edition of Mary Wilson’s two volumes of autobiography. This box set contains everything you could want by the Supremes, but is extraordinarily expensive in physical form at the moment, though cheap as MP3s. This is a good budget substitute, though oddly doesn’t contain “Stop in the Name of Love”. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before I start, this episode contains a brief mention of rape, and the trauma of a victim, and a glancing mention of an eating disorder. The discussion is not particularly explicit, but if you think you might find it upsetting, you might be advised to check the transcript before listening, which as always can be found on the site website, or to skip this episode. Today, we’re going to look at the first big hit from the group who would become the most successful female vocal group of the sixties, the group who would become the most important act to come out of Motown, and who would be more successful in chart terms than anyone in the sixties except the Beatles and Elvis.  We’re going to look at the record that made Holland, Dozier, and Holland the most important team in Motown, and that made a group that had been regarded as a joke into superstars. We’re going to look at “Where Did Our Love Go?” by the group that up until this record was known in Motown as “the no-hit Supremes”: [Excerpt: The Supremes, “Where Did Our Love Go?”] The story of the Supremes starts, like almost every Motown act, in Detroit. Specifically, it starts with a group called the Primes, a trio who had grown up in Birmingham, Alabama, and then had moved to Cleveland, before moving in turn to Detroit. The Primes consisted of Eddie Kendricks, Paul Williams, and Kell Osborne, and were gaining popularity around the city. But their act was lacking something, and their manager, Milton Jenkins, was inspired by Ray Charles’ backing vocalists, the Raelettes. What if, he thought, his male vocal group had a group of female backing singers, the Primettes? Stories vary about exactly how Jenkins pulled the group members together, including the idea that he literally stopped girls on the streets of the housing projects where the eventual members all lived. But what everyone seems to agree on is that Betty McGlown was dating Paul Williams, so she was an obvious choice. Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard knew each other and were good singers, especially Ballard, and they joined together, with Ballard becoming the new group’s leader. And nobody seems to be clear who asked Diana Ross to join, but she was invited in. Ross says she was already singing with the other three around the neighbourhood. Wilson insisted that they didn’t know her, and that she was brought in by Jenkins. While Ballard and Wilson were friendly enough, and all of them were from the same small area and so knew each other by sight, this wasn’t a group that came together as friends, but people who were put together by a third party. This would make a big difference to them over the years. Ross was probably introduced to the group because she already had a reputation among the people who were playing Detroit’s talent shows. For example there’s Melvin Franklin, who in the late fifties was singing with The Distants: [Excerpt: The Distants, “Come On”] Franklin was an old friend of Ross’ from school, and he would rave about Ross to his friends, so much so that Otis Williams, another member of the Distants (which would soon merge with the Primes to become the Temptations) knew Ross’ name long before he ever met her, and later remembered thinking “Jesus, this girl must be something special.” So Jenkins would have known about Ross through these connections. Incidentally, before we go any further, I should mention the issue of Diana Ross’ name. At this point, she was mostly known by the name on her birth certificate, Diane, and that’s how many people who knew her in this period still refer to her when talking about the late fifties and early sixties. However, she says herself that her parents always intended to name her Diana and the person filling in the birth certificate misspelled it, and she’s used Diana for many decades now. As a general rule on this podcast I always refer to someone by the name they choose for themselves unless there’s a very good reason not to, and so I’m going to be referring to her as Diana throughout — and later when we talk about the Byrds, I will always refer to Roger McGuinn, and so on. It’s difficult to talk about Diana Ross in any sensible way, because she is not a person who has inspired the greatest affection among her colleagues, or among people writing about her. But almost all the negative things said about her have a deep undercurrent of misogyny. One of the biographies I used for researching this episode, for example, in the space of four consecutive sentences in the introduction, compares her face to that of ET, says she looked “emaciated and vacant” (and this is a woman who suffered from anorexia), talks about how inviting her mouth is and her “bedroom eyes”, and then talks about how she used her sexuality to get ahead. You will be shocked, I am sure, to hear that this book was written by a male biographer. Oddly, the books I’m using for the upcoming episodes on Manfred Mann and the Beach Boys don’t talk of their lead singers in this way… In particular, there is a recurring theme in almost everything written about Ross, which criticises her for having affairs with prominent people at Motown, most notably Berry Gordy, and accuses her of doing this in order to further her own ambitions. That sort of criticism is rooted in misogyny. This is not a podcast that will ever deal in shaming women for their sexuality, and what consenting adults do with each other is their business alone. I would also point out that Ross’ affair with Gordy is always portrayed as ethical misconduct on Ross’ part, but *if* there was anything unethical about their relationship, the fault in a relationship between a rich, powerful, married man in his thirties and his much younger employee is unlikely to have been due to the latter. That’s not to say that Ross is flawless — far from it, as the narrative will make clear — but to say that it’s very difficult, when relying on reportage either from people with personal grudges against her or from writers who take attitudes like that, to separate the real flaws in the real woman from the monster of the popular imagination. But that’s all for later in the story. At this point, Ross was merely one of four girls brought together by Jenkins to form the Primettes – but Jenkins soon realised that this group could be better used as a group in their own right, rather than merely as backing vocalists for the Primes.  At this point, early on, there was no question but that Florence Ballard was the leader of the group. She had the most outspoken personality, and also had the best voice. When Jenkins had asked to hear the girls sing together, all the others had just looked at each other, while she had burst out into Ray Charles’ “Night Time is the Right Time”: [Excerpt: Ray Charles, “Night Time is the Right Time”] That would become a staple of the girls’ early act, along with “The Twist” and “There Goes My Baby”. All of the girls would take lead vocals on stage, but Florence was the first among equals. At that time, indeed, Ballard thought that Ross should not be a lead singer at all, but Ross got very angry at this, and kept working at her vocals, trying to get them more commercial and make better use of her more limited voice. Ballard was a natural singer, who sang passionately in a way that apparently blew audiences away with relatively little effort, because she was singing from the heart. Ross, on the other hand, was a calculated performer who was deliberately trying to gain the audience’s popularity, and was improving with every show as she learned what worked. The combination worked, at least for a time, though the two never got on even from the start. Of the other members, Mary Wilson was always the peacemaker, someone who was so conflict-averse she would find a way to get Florence and Diana to stop fighting, no matter what. Meanwhile, Betty was the least interested in being in a group — she was just doing it as a favour for her boyfriend. And finally, there was a fifth member, Marvin Tarplin, who didn’t sing but who played guitar, which made them one of the few vocal groups in the city who had their own accompaniment. Fairly quickly, Franklin dropped out of management — he spent some time in hospital, and after getting out he just never got back in touch with the girls — and the Primettes took over looking after themselves. There are various stories about them being approached by different people within Motown at different points, but everyone agrees that their first real contact with Motown came through Ross. Ross had, a year or so before the group formed, been friendly with Smokey Robinson, on whom she had a bit of an adolescent crush. Knowing that Robinson was now recording for Motown, she got in touch with him, and he made a suggestion — her group should audition for him, and if he thought they were good enough, he’d get them an appointment with Berry Gordy. The group sang for Robinson, who wasn’t hugely impressed, except with their guitarist. So Robinson made a deal with them — he’d get the girls an audition for Motown, if he could borrow their guitarist for a tour the Miracles were about to do. They agreed, and Robinson’s temporary borrowing of Tarplin lasted fifty years, as Tarplin continued working with Robinson, both in the Miracles and on Robinson’s solo records, until 2008, and co-wrote many of Robinson’s biggest hits. But Robinson kept his word, and the girls did indeed audition for Berry Gordy, who was encouraging but told them to come back after they had finished school.  But two other producers at Motown, Richard Morris and Robert Bateman, decided they weren’t going to wait around. If Berry Gordy didn’t want to sign them yet, they’d get the Primettes work with other labels. Morris became their manager, and they started getting session work on early recordings by future soul legends like Wilson Pickett: [Excerpt: Wilson Pickett, “Let Me Be Your Boy”] And Eddie Floyd: [Excerpt: Eddie Floyd, “I am Her Yo-Yo Man”] The group also eventually got to put out their own single. The A-side featured Ross on lead: [Excerpt: The Primettes, “Tears of Sorrow”] While the B-side had Wilson singing lead, but also featured a prominent high part from Ballard: [Excerpt: The Primettes, “Pretty Baby”] Shortly after this, several things happened that would change the group forever. One was that Betty decided to leave the group to get married. She had never been as committed to the group as the other three, and she was quickly replaced with a new singer, Barbara Martin. The other, far more devastating, thing was that Florence Ballard was raped by an acquaintance. This traumatised Ballard deeply, and from this point on she became unable to trust anyone, even her friends. She would suffer for the rest of her life from what would now be diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder, and while it’s likely that the later problems between her and Ross would have occurred in some form, the way they occurred was undoubtedly affected by the fact of Ballard’s untreated mental illness as a result of this trauma. After refusing to speak to anyone at all for a couple of weeks, Ballard managed to get herself well enough to start singing again, and then only a few days later Richard Morris was arrested for a parole violation and found himself in prison.  With all these devastating changes, many groups would have given up. But  the Primettes were ambitious, and they decided that they were going to force their way into Motown, whether Berry Gordy wanted them or not. They took to hanging around Hitsville, acting like they belonged there, and they soon found themselves doing minor bits of work on sessions — handclaps and backing vocals and so on, as almost everyone who hung around the studio long enough would. Eventually they got lucky. Freddie Gorman, who was the girls’ postman in his day job and had not yet written “Please Mr. Postman”, had been working on a song with Brian Holland, and the girls happened to be around.  Gorman suggested they try the song out, to see what it sounded like with harmonies, and the result was good enough that Holland and Gorman called in Gordy, who tinkered with the song to get his name on the credits, and then helped produce the session: [Excerpt: The Supremes, “I Want a Guy”] That came out under the name The Supremes, with a Berry Gordy song on the B-side, a knock-off of “Maybe” by the Chantels called “Never Again”. How the group got their new name has also been a subject of some dispute, in part because of legal issues later on, as Florence Ballard tried to claim some intellectual property rights in the group name as the one who had chosen it. Everyone involved has a different story about how the name was chosen, but it seems to be the consensus that Ballard did pick the name from a shortlist, with the dispute being over whether that shortlist was of names that the group members had come up with between them, or whether it was created by Janie Bradford, and whether Ballard made a conscious choice of the name or just picked it out of a hat. Whatever the case, the Primettes had now become the Supremes. The problem was that Berry Gordy wasn’t really interested in them as a group. Right from the start, he was only interested in Diana Ross as an individual, though at least at first all the members would get to take lead vocals on album tracks — though the singles would be saved for Diana. With one exception — after the group’s first single flopped, they decided to go in a very different direction for the second single.  For that, Gordy wrote a knock-off of a knock-off. In 1959 the Olympics had had a very minor hit with “Hully Gully”: [Excerpt: The Olympics, “Hully Gully”] Which had been remade a few months later by the Marathons as “Peanut Butter”: [Excerpt: The Marathons, “Peanut Butter”] Gordy chose to rework this song as “Buttered Popcorn”, a song that’s just an excuse for extremely weak double entendres, and Florence got to sing lead: [Excerpt: The Supremes, “Buttered Popcorn”] That was no more successful than “I Want a Guy”, and that would be the last time Florence Ballard ever got to sing lead on a Supremes single. It would also be the last single the Supremes released as a four-piece. While Barbara Martin had recorded some material with the group that would be released later, she became pregnant and decided to leave the group. Having decided that they clearly couldn’t keep a fourth singer around, the other three decided to continue on as a trio. By this time, Motown had signed the Marvelettes, and they’d leapfrogged over the Supremes to become major stars. The Supremes, meanwhile had had two flops in a row, and their third did little better, though “Your Heart Belongs to Me”,  written and produced for them by Smokey Robinson, did make number ninety-five in the charts. That was followed by a string of flops that often did, just, make the Hot One Hundred but didn’t qualify as hits by any measure — and many of them were truly terrible. The group got the nickname “the no-hit Supremes” and tended to get the songs that wouldn’t pass muster for other groups. Their nadir was probably the B-side “The Man with the Rock & Roll Banjo Band”, a song that seems to have been based around Duane Eddy’s “Dance With the Guitar Man”: [Excerpt: Duane Eddy, “Dance With the Guitar Man”] But instead of the electric guitar, the Supremes’ song was about the banjo, an instrument which has many virtues, but which does not really fit into the Motown sound: [Excerpt: The Supremes, “The Man with the Rock and Roll Banjo Band”] This sort of thing continued for two years, with the Supremes now being passed in chart success not only by the Marvelettes but also by the Vandellas, who also signed to Motown after them and had hits before. The “no-hit Supremes” at their best only just scraped the bottom of the Hot One Hundred, no matter who produced them — Lamont Dozier and Brian Holland, Clarence Paul, Berry Gordy, and Smokey Robinson all had multiple attempts at recording with the group, because of Gordy’s belief in Ross’ star potential, but nothing happened until they were paired with Holland, Dozier, and Holland, fresh off their success with the Vandellas. The musical side of the Holland/Dozier/Holland team had already worked with the group, but with little success. But once Holland/Dozier/Holland became a bona fide hit-making team, they started giving the Supremes additional backing vocal parts. They’re in the vocal stack, for example, on Marvin Gaye’s extraordinary “Can I Get a Witness”: [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, “Can I Get a Witness”] The first song that Holland, Dozier, and Holland wrote as a team for the Supremes is very different from the heavy, soulful, records they’d specialised in up until that point. Lamont Dozier has said that when he came up with the idea for “When the Lovelight Starts Shining in His Eyes” he was thinking of Phil Spector and Brian Wilson, although it’s unlikely he was actually thinking of Wilson, who at this point in 1963 was still making rather garagey surf-rock records rather than the symphonic pop he would start to specialise in the next year. Which is not to say that Holland, Dozier, and Holland weren’t paying attention to Wilson — after all, they wrote “Surfer Boy” for the Supremes in 1965 — but Dozier is probably misremembering here. It’s entirely plausible, though, that he was thinking of Spector, and the song definitely has a wall of sound feel, albeit filtered through Motown’s distinctly funkier, non-Wrecking-Crew, sound, and with more than a little Bo Diddley influence: [Excerpt: The Supremes, “When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes”] That also featured additional backing vocals from the Four Tops, another group with whom Holland, Dozier, and Holland were working, and who we’ll be hearing more of in future episodes. “When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes” went to number twenty-three, the first bona fide hit the Supremes had ever had. So they were set. They even had a surefire smash follow-up. With Holland, Dozier, and Holland they’d recorded *another* Phil Spector knock-off, *before* “Lovelight”, a record modelled on “Da Doo Ron Ron”, titled “Run Run Run”, but they’d held it back so they could release it next — they decided to release a record that sounded like a medium-sized hit first, to get some momentum and name recognition, so they could then release the big smash hit. But “Run Run Run” only went to number ninety-four. The group were at a low point, and as far as they could tell they were only going to get lower. They’d had their hit and it looked like a fluke. The big one they’d had hopes for had gone nowhere. The story of their next single has been told many ways by many different people. This is a version of the story as best I can put it together, but everything that follows might be false, because as with so much of Motown, everyone has their own agenda. As best I can make out, Holland, Dozier, and Holland were working on tracks for a proposed Marvelettes album and came up with a simple, stomping, song based on a repetitive eight-bar verse, with no bridge, chorus, or middle eight. The Holland brothers disagree about what happened next, and it sounds odd, but Lamont Dozier, Mary Wilson, and Katherine Anderson of the Marvelettes all say the same thing — while normally Motown artists had no say in what songs they recorded, this time the Marvelettes were played a couple of backing tracks which had been proposed as their next recording, and they chose to dump the eight-bar one, and go instead with “Too Many Fish in the Sea”: [Excerpt: The Marvelettes, “Too Many Fish in the Sea”] The way Dozier tells the story, that presented Holland, Dozier, and Holland with a problem. They’d recorded the backing track, and one of the many ways that Motown caused problems for its creative workers was that they would be charged against royalties for studio time. If the track didn’t get released, they’d lost all the money. So they turned to the Supremes, and Dozier tried to persuade Mary Wilson that he’d written this great new song, just for them, they’d love it, but by this point they’d already talked to the Marvelettes and been told about this dreadful song they’d managed to get out of doing, and advised to avoid it if they could. But while the Marvelettes were a big, successful group, the Supremes weren’t yet, and didn’t have any choice. They were going to record the song whether they liked it or not. They didn’t like it. Having already been poisoned against the song by the Marvelettes, there were further problems in the studio because one of the production team had originally told Mary Wilson she could sing lead on the song. Everyone seems agreed that Brian Holland insisted on Diana Ross singing it instead, but Eddie Holland remembers that he thought that Wilson should sing and it was Brian and Dozier who insisted on Ross, while Dozier remembers that *he* thought that Wilson should sing, and it was the Holland brothers who insisted on Ross. Somehow, if all these memories are to be believed, Brian Holland outvoted his partners one to two, possibly because Berry Gordy had declared that Ross should be the lead singer on all Supremes singles. Mary was devastated, while Ross was annoyed that she was having to sing what she thought was a terrible song, in a key that was much lower than she was used to. She got more annoyed when Eddie Holland kept coaching her on how he wanted the song sung — she was playing with the phrasing and Holland insisted she sing it straight. Eventually she started threatening to get Gordy to come down, at which point Eddie told her that she could do that, but then Gordy could just produce the session and they needn’t bother hoping for any more Holland/Dozier/Holland songs.  She sang through her lead putting as little emotion as she could into her voice, while glaring daggers at the producers, before storming off as soon as she’d completed the take they wanted, complaining about being given everyone else’s leftovers: [Excerpt: The Supremes, “Where Did Our Love Go?”] Holland, Dozier, and Holland then got on with trying to get the other two Supremes to do the backing vocal parts. But the parts Lamont Dozier had come up with were difficult, nobody was in a good mood, and Mary Wilson was still upset that she wasn’t going to be singing lead. They couldn’t get the vocals down, and eventually, frustrated, Dozier told them to just sing “baby baby” when he pointed, and they went with that. Towards the end of the session, Ross came back in, with Berry Gordy, who she had clearly been complaining to about the song. He asked to hear it, and they played back this recording that nobody was happy with. Gordy, much to Ross’ shock, was convinced it was a hit, and said to them “Cheer up, everybody! From now on, you’re the big-hit Supremes!”: [Excerpt: The Supremes, “Where Did Our Love Go?”] Motown was in a bit of a slump at that point — several of the label’s big stars had had disappointing follow-ups to their hits, and they’d just lost Mary Wells, one of their biggest stars, to another label. Gordy decided that they were going to give “Where Did Our Love Go?” a huge push, and persuaded Dick Clark to put the Supremes on his Caravan of Stars tour. When the record came out in June, they were at the bottom of the bill, opening the show on a bill with more than a dozen other acts, from the Zombies to the Shirelles to Freddie “Boom Boom” Cannon above them. By the end of the tour, their record was at number one in the charts and they had already recorded a follow-up. As “Where Did Our Love Go?” had included the word “baby” sixty-eight times, the production team had decided not to mess with a winning formula: [Excerpt: The Supremes, “Baby Love”] That went to number one by the end of October 1964, making the Supremes the first Motown act to have two number ones. There would be a lot more where that came from. But there was already trouble brewing in the group. Even on the Dick Clark tourbus, there were rumours that Diana Ross wanted a solo career, and there was talk of her forcing Florence Ballard out of the group. We’ll look at that, and what happened with the Supremes in the latter part of the sixties in a few months’ time.  But I can’t end this time without acknowledging the sad death, a month ago today, of Mary Wilson, the only member of the Supremes who stayed with the group from the beginning right through to their split in 1977. For a member of a group who were second only to the Beatles for commercial success in the sixties, she was underrewarded in life, and her death went underreported. She’ll be missed.

Episode one hundred and sixteen of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at "Where Did Our Love Go?" by the Supremes, and how the "no-hit Supremes" became the biggest girl group in history. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on "She's Not There" by the Zombies. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ ----more----   Resources As usual, I've created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode.  For Motown-related information in this and other Motown episodes, I've used the following resources: Where Did Our Love Go? The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound by Nelson George is an excellent popular history of the various companies that became Motown.  To Be Loved by Berry Gordy is Gordy's own, understandably one-sided, but relatively well-written, autobiography. Women of Motown: An Oral History by Susan Whitall is a collection of interviews with women involved in Motown. I Hear a Symphony: Motown and Crossover R&B by J. Andrew Flory is an academic look at Motown. The Motown Encyclopaedia by Graham Betts is an exhaustive look at the people and records involved in Motown's thirty-year history. How Sweet It Is by Lamont Dozier and Scott B. Bomar is Dozier's autobiography, while Come and Get These Memories by Brian and Eddie Holland and Dave Thompson is the Holland brothers'. And Motown Junkies is an infrequently-updated blog looking at (so far) the first 694 tracks released on Motown singles. Girl Groups by John Clemente contains potted biographies of many groups of the era. The Supremes biography I mention in the podcast is The Supremes by Mark Ribowsky, which seems factually accurate but questionable in its judgments of people. I also used this omnibus edition of Mary Wilson's two volumes of autobiography. This box set contains everything you could want by the Supremes, but is extraordinarily expensive in physical form at the moment, though cheap as MP3s. This is a good budget substitute, though oddly doesn't contain "Stop in the Name of Love". Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before I start, this episode contains a brief mention of rape, and the trauma of a victim, and a glancing mention of an eating disorder. The discussion is not particularly explicit, but if you think you might find it upsetting, you might be advised to check the transcript before listening, which as always can be found on the site website, or to skip this episode. Today, we're going to look at the first big hit from the group who would become the most successful female vocal group of the sixties, the group who would become the most important act to come out of Motown, and who would be more successful in chart terms than anyone in the sixties except the Beatles and Elvis.  We're going to look at the record that made Holland, Dozier, and Holland the most important team in Motown, and that made a group that had been regarded as a joke into superstars. We're going to look at "Where Did Our Love Go?" by the group that up until this record was known in Motown as "the no-hit Supremes": [Excerpt: The Supremes, "Where Did Our Love Go?"] The story of the Supremes starts, like almost every Motown act, in Detroit. Specifically, it starts with a group called the Primes, a trio who had grown up in Birmingham, Alabama, and then had moved to Cleveland, before moving in turn to Detroit. The Primes consisted of Eddie Kendricks, Paul Williams, and Kell Osborne, and were gaining popularity around the city. But their act was lacking something, and their manager, Milton Jenkins, was inspired by Ray Charles' backing vocalists, the Raelettes. What if, he thought, his male vocal group had a group of female backing singers, the Primettes? Stories vary about exactly how Jenkins pulled the group members together, including the idea that he literally stopped girls on the streets of the housing projects where the eventual members all lived. But what everyone seems to agree on is that Betty McGlown was dating Paul Williams, so she was an obvious choice. Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard knew each other and were good singers, especially Ballard, and they joined together, with Ballard becoming the new group's leader. And nobody seems to be clear who asked Diana Ross to join, but she was invited in. Ross says she was already singing with the other three around the neighbourhood. Wilson insisted that they didn't know her, and that she was brought in by Jenkins. While Ballard and Wilson were friendly enough, and all of them were from the same small area and so knew each other by sight, this wasn't a group that came together as friends, but people who were put together by a third party. This would make a big difference to them over the years. Ross was probably introduced to the group because she already had a reputation among the people who were playing Detroit's talent shows. For example there's Melvin Franklin, who in the late fifties was singing with The Distants: [Excerpt: The Distants, "Come On"] Franklin was an old friend of Ross' from school, and he would rave about Ross to his friends, so much so that Otis Williams, another member of the Distants (which would soon merge with the Primes to become the Temptations) knew Ross' name long before he ever met her, and later remembered thinking "Jesus, this girl must be something special." So Jenkins would have known about Ross through these connections. Incidentally, before we go any further, I should mention the issue of Diana Ross' name. At this point, she was mostly known by the name on her birth certificate, Diane, and that's how many people who knew her in this period still refer to her when talking about the late fifties and early sixties. However, she says herself that her parents always intended to name her Diana and the person filling in the birth certificate misspelled it, and she's used Diana for many decades now. As a general rule on this podcast I always refer to someone by the name they choose for themselves unless there's a very good reason not to, and so I'm going to be referring to her as Diana throughout -- and later when we talk about the Byrds, I will always refer to Roger McGuinn, and so on. It's difficult to talk about Diana Ross in any sensible way, because she is not a person who has inspired the greatest affection among her colleagues, or among people writing about her. But almost all the negative things said about her have a deep undercurrent of misogyny. One of the biographies I used for researching this episode, for example, in the space of four consecutive sentences in the introduction, compares her face to that of ET, says she looked "emaciated and vacant" (and this is a woman who suffered from anorexia), talks about how inviting her mouth is and her "bedroom eyes", and then talks about how she used her sexuality to get ahead. You will be shocked, I am sure, to hear that this book was written by a male biographer. Oddly, the books I'm using for the upcoming episodes on Manfred Mann and the Beach Boys don't talk of their lead singers in this way... In particular, there is a recurring theme in almost everything written about Ross, which criticises her for having affairs with prominent people at Motown, most notably Berry Gordy, and accuses her of doing this in order to further her own ambitions. That sort of criticism is rooted in misogyny. This is not a podcast that will ever deal in shaming women for their sexuality, and what consenting adults do with each other is their business alone. I would also point out that Ross' affair with Gordy is always portrayed as ethical misconduct on Ross' part, but *if* there was anything unethical about their relationship, the fault in a relationship between a rich, powerful, married man in his thirties and his much younger employee is unlikely to have been due to the latter. That's not to say that Ross is flawless -- far from it, as the narrative will make clear -- but to say that it's very difficult, when relying on reportage either from people with personal grudges against her or from writers who take attitudes like that, to separate the real flaws in the real woman from the monster of the popular imagination. But that's all for later in the story. At this point, Ross was merely one of four girls brought together by Jenkins to form the Primettes - but Jenkins soon realised that this group could be better used as a group in their own right, rather than merely as backing vocalists for the Primes.  At this point, early on, there was no question but that Florence Ballard was the leader of the group. She had the most outspoken personality, and also had the best voice. When Jenkins had asked to hear the girls sing together, all the others had just looked at each other, while she had burst out into Ray Charles' "Night Time is the Right Time": [Excerpt: Ray Charles, "Night Time is the Right Time"] That would become a staple of the girls' early act, along with "The Twist" and "There Goes My Baby". All of the girls would take lead vocals on stage, but Florence was the first among equals. At that time, indeed, Ballard thought that Ross should not be a lead singer at all, but Ross got very angry at this, and kept working at her vocals, trying to get them more commercial and make better use of her more limited voice. Ballard was a natural singer, who sang passionately in a way that apparently blew audiences away with relatively little effort, because she was singing from the heart. Ross, on the other hand, was a calculated performer who was deliberately trying to gain the audience's popularity, and was improving with every show as she learned what worked. The combination worked, at least for a time, though the two never got on even from the start. Of the other members, Mary Wilson was always the peacemaker, someone who was so conflict-averse she would find a way to get Florence and Diana to stop fighting, no matter what. Meanwhile, Betty was the least interested in being in a group -- she was just doing it as a favour for her boyfriend. And finally, there was a fifth member, Marvin Tarplin, who didn't sing but who played guitar, which made them one of the few vocal groups in the city who had their own accompaniment. Fairly quickly, Franklin dropped out of management -- he spent some time in hospital, and after getting out he just never got back in touch with the girls -- and the Primettes took over looking after themselves. There are various stories about them being approached by different people within Motown at different points, but everyone agrees that their first real contact with Motown came through Ross. Ross had, a year or so before the group formed, been friendly with Smokey Robinson, on whom she had a bit of an adolescent crush. Knowing that Robinson was now recording for Motown, she got in touch with him, and he made a suggestion -- her group should audition for him, and if he thought they were good enough, he'd get them an appointment with Berry Gordy. The group sang for Robinson, who wasn't hugely impressed, except with their guitarist. So Robinson made a deal with them -- he'd get the girls an audition for Motown, if he could borrow their guitarist for a tour the Miracles were about to do. They agreed, and Robinson's temporary borrowing of Tarplin lasted fifty years, as Tarplin continued working with Robinson, both in the Miracles and on Robinson's solo records, until 2008, and co-wrote many of Robinson's biggest hits. But Robinson kept his word, and the girls did indeed audition for Berry Gordy, who was encouraging but told them to come back after they had finished school.  But two other producers at Motown, Richard Morris and Robert Bateman, decided they weren't going to wait around. If Berry Gordy didn't want to sign them yet, they'd get the Primettes work with other labels. Morris became their manager, and they started getting session work on early recordings by future soul legends like Wilson Pickett: [Excerpt: Wilson Pickett, "Let Me Be Your Boy"] And Eddie Floyd: [Excerpt: Eddie Floyd, "I am Her Yo-Yo Man"] The group also eventually got to put out their own single. The A-side featured Ross on lead: [Excerpt: The Primettes, "Tears of Sorrow"] While the B-side had Wilson singing lead, but also featured a prominent high part from Ballard: [Excerpt: The Primettes, "Pretty Baby"] Shortly after this, several things happened that would change the group forever. One was that Betty decided to leave the group to get married. She had never been as committed to the group as the other three, and she was quickly replaced with a new singer, Barbara Martin. The other, far more devastating, thing was that Florence Ballard was raped by an acquaintance. This traumatised Ballard deeply, and from this point on she became unable to trust anyone, even her friends. She would suffer for the rest of her life from what would now be diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder, and while it's likely that the later problems between her and Ross would have occurred in some form, the way they occurred was undoubtedly affected by the fact of Ballard's untreated mental illness as a result of this trauma. After refusing to speak to anyone at all for a couple of weeks, Ballard managed to get herself well enough to start singing again, and then only a few days later Richard Morris was arrested for a parole violation and found himself in prison.  With all these devastating changes, many groups would have given up. But  the Primettes were ambitious, and they decided that they were going to force their way into Motown, whether Berry Gordy wanted them or not. They took to hanging around Hitsville, acting like they belonged there, and they soon found themselves doing minor bits of work on sessions -- handclaps and backing vocals and so on, as almost everyone who hung around the studio long enough would. Eventually they got lucky. Freddie Gorman, who was the girls' postman in his day job and had not yet written "Please Mr. Postman", had been working on a song with Brian Holland, and the girls happened to be around.  Gorman suggested they try the song out, to see what it sounded like with harmonies, and the result was good enough that Holland and Gorman called in Gordy, who tinkered with the song to get his name on the credits, and then helped produce the session: [Excerpt: The Supremes, "I Want a Guy"] That came out under the name The Supremes, with a Berry Gordy song on the B-side, a knock-off of "Maybe" by the Chantels called "Never Again". How the group got their new name has also been a subject of some dispute, in part because of legal issues later on, as Florence Ballard tried to claim some intellectual property rights in the group name as the one who had chosen it. Everyone involved has a different story about how the name was chosen, but it seems to be the consensus that Ballard did pick the name from a shortlist, with the dispute being over whether that shortlist was of names that the group members had come up with between them, or whether it was created by Janie Bradford, and whether Ballard made a conscious choice of the name or just picked it out of a hat. Whatever the case, the Primettes had now become the Supremes. The problem was that Berry Gordy wasn't really interested in them as a group. Right from the start, he was only interested in Diana Ross as an individual, though at least at first all the members would get to take lead vocals on album tracks -- though the singles would be saved for Diana. With one exception -- after the group's first single flopped, they decided to go in a very different direction for the second single.  For that, Gordy wrote a knock-off of a knock-off. In 1959 the Olympics had had a very minor hit with "Hully Gully": [Excerpt: The Olympics, "Hully Gully"] Which had been remade a few months later by the Marathons as "Peanut Butter": [Excerpt: The Marathons, "Peanut Butter"] Gordy chose to rework this song as "Buttered Popcorn", a song that's just an excuse for extremely weak double entendres, and Florence got to sing lead: [Excerpt: The Supremes, "Buttered Popcorn"] That was no more successful than "I Want a Guy", and that would be the last time Florence Ballard ever got to sing lead on a Supremes single. It would also be the last single the Supremes released as a four-piece. While Barbara Martin had recorded some material with the group that would be released later, she became pregnant and decided to leave the group. Having decided that they clearly couldn't keep a fourth singer around, the other three decided to continue on as a trio. By this time, Motown had signed the Marvelettes, and they'd leapfrogged over the Supremes to become major stars. The Supremes, meanwhile had had two flops in a row, and their third did little better, though "Your Heart Belongs to Me",  written and produced for them by Smokey Robinson, did make number ninety-five in the charts. That was followed by a string of flops that often did, just, make the Hot One Hundred but didn't qualify as hits by any measure -- and many of them were truly terrible. The group got the nickname "the no-hit Supremes" and tended to get the songs that wouldn't pass muster for other groups. Their nadir was probably the B-side "The Man with the Rock & Roll Banjo Band", a song that seems to have been based around Duane Eddy's "Dance With the Guitar Man": [Excerpt: Duane Eddy, "Dance With the Guitar Man"] But instead of the electric guitar, the Supremes' song was about the banjo, an instrument which has many virtues, but which does not really fit into the Motown sound: [Excerpt: The Supremes, "The Man with the Rock and Roll Banjo Band"] This sort of thing continued for two years, with the Supremes now being passed in chart success not only by the Marvelettes but also by the Vandellas, who also signed to Motown after them and had hits before. The "no-hit Supremes" at their best only just scraped the bottom of the Hot One Hundred, no matter who produced them -- Lamont Dozier and Brian Holland, Clarence Paul, Berry Gordy, and Smokey Robinson all had multiple attempts at recording with the group, because of Gordy's belief in Ross' star potential, but nothing happened until they were paired with Holland, Dozier, and Holland, fresh off their success with the Vandellas. The musical side of the Holland/Dozier/Holland team had already worked with the group, but with little success. But once Holland/Dozier/Holland became a bona fide hit-making team, they started giving the Supremes additional backing vocal parts. They're in the vocal stack, for example, on Marvin Gaye's extraordinary "Can I Get a Witness": [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, "Can I Get a Witness"] The first song that Holland, Dozier, and Holland wrote as a team for the Supremes is very different from the heavy, soulful, records they'd specialised in up until that point. Lamont Dozier has said that when he came up with the idea for "When the Lovelight Starts Shining in His Eyes" he was thinking of Phil Spector and Brian Wilson, although it's unlikely he was actually thinking of Wilson, who at this point in 1963 was still making rather garagey surf-rock records rather than the symphonic pop he would start to specialise in the next year. Which is not to say that Holland, Dozier, and Holland weren't paying attention to Wilson -- after all, they wrote "Surfer Boy" for the Supremes in 1965 -- but Dozier is probably misremembering here. It's entirely plausible, though, that he was thinking of Spector, and the song definitely has a wall of sound feel, albeit filtered through Motown's distinctly funkier, non-Wrecking-Crew, sound, and with more than a little Bo Diddley influence: [Excerpt: The Supremes, "When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes"] That also featured additional backing vocals from the Four Tops, another group with whom Holland, Dozier, and Holland were working, and who we'll be hearing more of in future episodes. "When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes" went to number twenty-three, the first bona fide hit the Supremes had ever had. So they were set. They even had a surefire smash follow-up. With Holland, Dozier, and Holland they'd recorded *another* Phil Spector knock-off, *before* "Lovelight", a record modelled on "Da Doo Ron Ron", titled "Run Run Run", but they'd held it back so they could release it next -- they decided to release a record that sounded like a medium-sized hit first, to get some momentum and name recognition, so they could then release the big smash hit. But "Run Run Run" only went to number ninety-four. The group were at a low point, and as far as they could tell they were only going to get lower. They'd had their hit and it looked like a fluke. The big one they'd had hopes for had gone nowhere. The story of their next single has been told many ways by many different people. This is a version of the story as best I can put it together, but everything that follows might be false, because as with so much of Motown, everyone has their own agenda. As best I can make out, Holland, Dozier, and Holland were working on tracks for a proposed Marvelettes album and came up with a simple, stomping, song based on a repetitive eight-bar verse, with no bridge, chorus, or middle eight. The Holland brothers disagree about what happened next, and it sounds odd, but Lamont Dozier, Mary Wilson, and Katherine Anderson of the Marvelettes all say the same thing -- while normally Motown artists had no say in what songs they recorded, this time the Marvelettes were played a couple of backing tracks which had been proposed as their next recording, and they chose to dump the eight-bar one, and go instead with "Too Many Fish in the Sea": [Excerpt: The Marvelettes, "Too Many Fish in the Sea"] The way Dozier tells the story, that presented Holland, Dozier, and Holland with a problem. They'd recorded the backing track, and one of the many ways that Motown caused problems for its creative workers was that they would be charged against royalties for studio time. If the track didn't get released, they'd lost all the money. So they turned to the Supremes, and Dozier tried to persuade Mary Wilson that he'd written this great new song, just for them, they'd love it, but by this point they'd already talked to the Marvelettes and been told about this dreadful song they'd managed to get out of doing, and advised to avoid it if they could. But while the Marvelettes were a big, successful group, the Supremes weren't yet, and didn't have any choice. They were going to record the song whether they liked it or not. They didn't like it. Having already been poisoned against the song by the Marvelettes, there were further problems in the studio because one of the production team had originally told Mary Wilson she could sing lead on the song. Everyone seems agreed that Brian Holland insisted on Diana Ross singing it instead, but Eddie Holland remembers that he thought that Wilson should sing and it was Brian and Dozier who insisted on Ross, while Dozier remembers that *he* thought that Wilson should sing, and it was the Holland brothers who insisted on Ross. Somehow, if all these memories are to be believed, Brian Holland outvoted his partners one to two, possibly because Berry Gordy had declared that Ross should be the lead singer on all Supremes singles. Mary was devastated, while Ross was annoyed that she was having to sing what she thought was a terrible song, in a key that was much lower than she was used to. She got more annoyed when Eddie Holland kept coaching her on how he wanted the song sung -- she was playing with the phrasing and Holland insisted she sing it straight. Eventually she started threatening to get Gordy to come down, at which point Eddie told her that she could do that, but then Gordy could just produce the session and they needn't bother hoping for any more Holland/Dozier/Holland songs.  She sang through her lead putting as little emotion as she could into her voice, while glaring daggers at the producers, before storming off as soon as she'd completed the take they wanted, complaining about being given everyone else's leftovers: [Excerpt: The Supremes, “Where Did Our Love Go?”] Holland, Dozier, and Holland then got on with trying to get the other two Supremes to do the backing vocal parts. But the parts Lamont Dozier had come up with were difficult, nobody was in a good mood, and Mary Wilson was still upset that she wasn't going to be singing lead. They couldn't get the vocals down, and eventually, frustrated, Dozier told them to just sing "baby baby" when he pointed, and they went with that. Towards the end of the session, Ross came back in, with Berry Gordy, who she had clearly been complaining to about the song. He asked to hear it, and they played back this recording that nobody was happy with. Gordy, much to Ross' shock, was convinced it was a hit, and said to them "Cheer up, everybody! From now on, you're the big-hit Supremes!": [Excerpt: The Supremes, "Where Did Our Love Go?"] Motown was in a bit of a slump at that point -- several of the label's big stars had had disappointing follow-ups to their hits, and they'd just lost Mary Wells, one of their biggest stars, to another label. Gordy decided that they were going to give "Where Did Our Love Go?" a huge push, and persuaded Dick Clark to put the Supremes on his Caravan of Stars tour. When the record came out in June, they were at the bottom of the bill, opening the show on a bill with more than a dozen other acts, from the Zombies to the Shirelles to Freddie "Boom Boom" Cannon above them. By the end of the tour, their record was at number one in the charts and they had already recorded a follow-up. As "Where Did Our Love Go?" had included the word "baby" sixty-eight times, the production team had decided not to mess with a winning formula: [Excerpt: The Supremes, "Baby Love"] That went to number one by the end of October 1964, making the Supremes the first Motown act to have two number ones. There would be a lot more where that came from. But there was already trouble brewing in the group. Even on the Dick Clark tourbus, there were rumours that Diana Ross wanted a solo career, and there was talk of her forcing Florence Ballard out of the group. We'll look at that, and what happened with the Supremes in the latter part of the sixties in a few months' time.  But I can't end this time without acknowledging the sad death, a month ago today, of Mary Wilson, the only member of the Supremes who stayed with the group from the beginning right through to their split in 1977. For a member of a group who were second only to the Beatles for commercial success in the sixties, she was underrewarded in life, and her death went underreported. She'll be missed.

Spotlight Guest - Professor Daryl Michael Scott; B.C Mayor compares Gun owners to Holocaust Victims; Is Hamilton Cancelled? & Dog C-Section Gone wrongAs we close out this final day of Black History Month, this episode the Truth, Lies, Shenanigans Crew will be joined by special guest Daryl Michael Scott, a history professor at Howard University and a noted scholar on African American Life and History. Plus, we'll also have our usual round of Hot Topics for your Shenanigans pleasure, including the two Florida men who were arrested after a TikTok video allegedly showed an unlicensed surgery on a dog, and the mystery surrounding the kidnapping of Lady GaGa's dogs. Originally aired live LIVE 2/28/2021 at 4:00 pm ET using @TLSLiveShow on YouTube, Twitter, or Instagram, or at http://TLSLiveShow.com...Want to Support TLS? Donate Today! www.Paypal.me/TLSdonateSupport the show (https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=52QR3YKJZ4PAS)

Hello and welcome to the History of Drugs in Society with me, Eugene Leventhal. This week, I got to speak with the honorable Scott B. Cecil, who is a city council member in Mount Rainier in Maryland. In addition to that, Scott also runs two podcasts of his own - one called Prohibited which explores prohibition in various contexts, and the other is called the Outlaw Report, which is about cannabis policy and news in the DC area Below are links to both of Scott's podcasts and you can follow him on Twitter. https://prohibitedpodcast.com/ https://www.outlawreport.com/  Feel free to reach out to me over email (DrugsHistory@gmail.com) or via Twitter (@DrugsHistory).  Be well!

Episode one hundred and eleven of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Heat Wave” by Martha and the Vandellas, and the beginnings of Holland-Dozier-Holland. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “My Boyfriend’s Back” by the Angels. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ —-more—-   Resources As usual, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode.  For Motown-related information in this and other Motown episodes, I’ve used the following resources: Where Did Our Love Go? The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound by Nelson George is an excellent popular history of the various companies that became Motown.  To Be Loved by Berry Gordy is Gordy’s own, understandably one-sided, but relatively well-written, autobiography. Women of Motown: An Oral History by Susan Whitall is a collection of interviews with women involved in Motown, including Martha and the Vandellas. I Hear a Symphony: Motown and Crossover R&B by J. Andrew Flory is an academic look at Motown. The Motown Encyclopaedia by Graham Betts is an exhaustive look at the people and records involved in Motown’s thirty-year history. How Sweet It Is by Lamont Dozier and Scott B. Bomar is Dozier’s autobiography, while Come and Get These Memories by Brian and Eddie Holland and Dave Thompson is the Holland brothers’. And Motown Junkies is an infrequently-updated blog looking at (so far) the first 694 tracks released on Motown singles. Girl Groups by John Clemente contains potted biographies of many groups of the era, including Martha and the Vandellas. And Dancing in the Street: Confessions of a Motown Diva  by Martha Reeves and Mark Bego is Reeves’ autobiography. And this three-CD set contains all the Vandellas’ Motown singles, along with a bunch of rarities.   Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Today we’re going to take a look at the career of one of the great girl groups to come out of Motown, and at the early work of the songwriting team that went on to be arguably the most important people in the definition of the Motown Sound. We’re going to look at “Heatwave” by Martha and the Vandellas, and the beginning of the career of Holland, Dozier, and Holland: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, “Heatwave”] By the time she started recording for Motown, Martha Reeves had already spent several years in groups around Detroit, with little success. Her singing career had started in a group called The Fascinations, which she had formed with another singer, who is variously named in different sources as Shirley Lawson and Shirley Walker. She’d quickly left that group, but after she left them, the Fascinations went on to make a string of minor hit records with Curtis Mayfield: [Excerpt: The Fascinations, “Girls Are Out To Get You”] But it wasn’t just her professional experience, such as it was, that Reeves credited for her success — she had also been a soloist in her high school choir, and from her accounts her real training came from her High School music teacher, Abraham Silver. In her autobiography she talks about hanging around in the park singing with other people who had been taught by the same teacher — Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard, who would go on to form the Supremes, Bobby Rogers and Claudette Robinson, who were founder members of the Miracles, and Little Joe Harris, who would later become lead singer of the minor Motown act The Undisputed Truth. She’d eventually joined another group, the Del-Phis, with three other singers — Gloria Williams (or Williamson — sources vary as to what her actual surname was — it might be that Williamson was her birth name and Williams a stage name), Annette Beard, and Rosalind Ashford. The group found out early on that they didn’t particularly get on with each other as people — their personalities were all too different — but their voices blended well and they worked well on stage. Williams or Williamson was the leader and lead singer at this point, and the rest of the DelPhis acted as her backing group. They started performing at the amateur nights and talent contests that were such a big part of the way that Black talent got known at that time, and developed a rivalry with two other groups — The Primes, who would later go on to be the Temptations, and The Primettes, who had named themselves after the Primes, but later became the Supremes. Those three groups more or less took it in turns to win the talent contests, and before long the Del-Phis had been signed to Checkmate Records, one of several subsidiaries of Chess, where they released one single, with Gloria on lead: [Excerpt: The Del-Phis, “I’ll Let You Know”] The group also sang backing vocals on various other records at that time, like Mike Hanks’ “When True Love Comes to Be”: [Excerpt: Mike Hanks, “When True Love Comes to Be”] Depending on who you believe, Martha may not be on that record at all — the Del-Phis apparently had some lineup fluctuations, with members coming and going, though the story of who was in the group when seems to be told more on the basis of who wants credit for what at any particular time than on what the truth is. No matter who was in the group, though, they never had more than local success. While the Del-Phis were trying and failing to become big stars as a group, Martha also started performing solo, as Martha LaVelle. Only a couple of days after her first solo performance, Mickey Stevenson saw her perform and gave her his card, telling her to pop down to Hitsville for an audition as he thought she had talent. But when she did turn up, Stevenson was annoyed at her, over a misunderstanding that turned out to be his fault. She had just come straight to the studio, assuming she could audition any time, and Stevenson hadn’t explained to her that they had one day a month where they ran auditions — he’d expected her to call him on the number on the card, not just come down. Stevenson was busy that day, and left the office, telling Martha on his way out the door that he’d be back in a bit, and to answer the phone if it rang, leaving her alone in the office. She started answering the phone, calling herself the “A&R secretary”, taking messages, and sorting out problems. She was asked to come back the next day, and worked there three weeks for no pay before getting herself put on a salary as Stevenson’s secretary. Once her foot was in the door at Motown, she also started helping out on sessions, as almost all the staff there did, adding backing vocals, handclaps, or footstomps for a five-dollar-per-session bonus.  One of her jobs as Stevenson’s secretary was to phone and book session musicians and singers,  and for one session the Andantes, Motown’s normal female backing vocal group, were unavailable. Martha got the idea to call the rest of the DelPhis — who seem like they might even have been split up at this point, depending on which source you read — and see if they wanted to do the job instead. They had to audition for Berry Gordy, but Gordy was perfectly happy with them and signed them to Motown. Their role was mostly to be backing vocalists, but the plan was that they would also cut a few singles themselves as well.  But Gordy didn’t want to sign them as the Del-Phis — he didn’t know what the details of their contract with Checkmate were, and who actually owned the name. So they needed a new name. At first they went with the Dominettes, but that was soon changed, before they ever made a record What happened is a matter of some dispute, because this seems to be the moment that Martha Reeves took over the group — it may be that the fact that she was the one booking them for the sessions and so in charge of whether they got paid or not changed the power dynamics of the band — and so different people give different accounts depending on who they want to seem most important. But the generally accepted story is that Martha suggested a name based on the street she lived on, Van Dyke Street, and Della Reese, Martha’s favourite singer, who had hits like “Don’t You Know?”: [Excerpt: Della Reese, “Don’t You Know?”] The group became Martha and the Vandellas — although Rosalind Ashford, who says that the group name was not Martha’s work, also says that the group weren’t “Martha and the Vandellas” to start with, but just the Vandellas, and this might be the case, as at this point Gloria rather than Martha was still the lead singer. The newly-named Vandellas were quickly put to work, mostly working on records that Mickey Stevenson produced. The first record they sang on was not credited either to the Vandellas *or* to Martha and the Vandellas, being instead credited to Saundra Mallett and the Vandellas – Mallett was a minor Motown singer who they were backing for this one record. The song was one written by Berry Gordy, as an attempt at a “Loco-Motion” clone, and was called “Camel Walk”: [Excerpt: Saundra Mallett and the Vandellas, “Camel Walk”] More famously, there was the record that everyone talks about as being the first one to feature the Vandellas, even though it came out after “Camel Walk”, one we’ve already talked about before, Marvin Gaye’s “Stubborn Kind of Fellow”: [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, “Stubborn Kind of Fellow”] That became Gaye’s breakout hit, and as well as singing in the studio for other artists and trying to make their own records, the Vandellas were now also Marvin Gaye’s backing vocalists, and at shows like the Motortown Revue shows, as well as performing their own sets, the Vandellas would sing with Gaye as well. While they were not yet themselves stars, they had a foot on the ladder, and through working with Marvin they got to perform with all sorts of other people — Martha was particularly impressed by the Beach Boys, who performed on the same bill as them in Detroit, and she developed a lifelong crush on Mike Love. But while the Vandellas were Motown’s go-to backing vocalists in 1962, they still wanted to make their own records. They did make one record with Gloria singing lead, “You’ll Never Cherish A Love So True (‘Til You Lose It)”: [Excerpt: The Vells, “You’ll Never Cherish A Love So True (‘Til You Lose It)”] But that was released not as by the Vandellas, but by the Vells, because by the time it was released, the Vandellas had more or less by accident become definitively MARTHA and the Vandellas. The session that changed everything came about because Martha was still working as Mickey Stevenson’s secretary. Stevenson was producing a record for Mary Wells, and he had a problem. Stevenson had recently instituted a new system for his recordings at Motown. Up to this point, they’d been making records with everyone in the studio at the same time — all the musicians, the lead singer, the backing vocalists, and so on. But that became increasingly difficult when the label’s stars were on tour all the time, and it also meant that if the singer flubbed a note a good bass take would also be wrecked, or vice versa. It just wasn’t efficient. So, taking advantage of the ability to multitrack, Stevenson had started doing things differently. Now backing tracks would be recorded by the Funk Brothers in the studio whenever a writer-producer had something for them to record, and then the singer would come in later and overdub their vocals when it was convenient to do that. That also had other advantages — if a singer turned out not to be right for the song, they could record another singer doing it instead, and they could reuse backing tracks, so if a song was a hit for, say, the Miracles, the Marvelettes could then use the same backing track for a cover version of it to fill out an album. But there was a problem with this system, and that problem was the Musicians’ Union. The union had a rule that if musicians were cutting a track that was intended to have a vocal, the vocalist *must* be present at the session — like a lot of historical union rules, this seems faintly ridiculous today, but no doubt there were good reasons for it at the time.  Motown, like most labels, were perfectly happy to break the union rules on occasion, but there was always the possibility of a surprise union inspection, and one turned up while Mickey Stevenson was cutting “I’ll Have to Let Him Go”. Mary Wells wasn’t there, and knowing that his secretary could sing, Stevenson grabbed her and got her to go into the studio and sing the song while the musicians played. Martha decided to give the song everything she had, and Stevenson was impressed enough that he decided to give the song to her, rather than Wells, and at the same session that the Vandellas recorded the songs with Gloria on lead, they recorded new vocals to the backing track that Stevenson had recorded that day: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, “I’ll Have to Let Him Go”] That was released under the Martha and the Vandellas name, and around this point Gloria left the group. Some have suggested that this was because she didn’t like Martha becoming the leader, while others have said that it’s just that she had a good job working for the city, and didn’t want to put that at risk by becoming a full-time singer. Either way, a week after the Vandellas record came out, Motown released “You’ll Never Cherish A Love So True (‘Til You Lose It)” under the name The Vells.  Neither single had any chart success, but that wouldn’t be true for the next one, which wouldn’t be released for another five months. But when it was finally released, it would be regarded as the beginning of the “Motown Sound”. Before that record, Motown had released many extraordinary records, and we’ve looked at some of them. But after it, it began a domination of the American charts that would last the rest of the decade; a domination caused in large part by the team of Holland, Dozier, and Holland. We’ve heard a little from the Holland brothers and Lamont Dozier, separately, in previous episodes looking at Motown, but this is the point at which they go from being minor players within the Motown organisation to being the single most important team for the label’s future commercial success, so we should take a proper look at them now. Eddie Holland started working with Berry Gordy years before the start of Motown — he was a singer who was known for having a similar sounding voice to that of Jackie Wilson, and Gordy had taken him on first as a soundalike demo singer, recording songs written for Wilson so Wilson could hear how they would sound in his voice, and later trying to mould him into a Wilson clone, starting with Holland’s first single, “You”: [Excerpt: Eddie Holland, “You”] Holland quickly found that he didn’t enjoy performing on stage — he loved singing, but he didn’t like the actual experience of being on stage. However, he continued doing it, in the belief that one should not just quit a job until a better opportunity comes along. Before becoming a professional singer, Holland had sung in street-corner doo-wop groups with his younger brother Brian. Brian, unlike Eddie, didn’t have a particularly great voice, but what he did have was a great musical mind — he could instantly figure out all the harmony parts for the whole group, and had a massive talent for arrangement. Eddie spent much of his early time working with Gordy trying to get Gordy to take his little brother seriously — at the time,  Brian Holland was still in his early teens, and Gordy refused to believe he could be as talented as Eddie said. Eventually, though, Gordy listened to Brian and took him under his wing, pairing him with Janie Bradford to add music to Bradford’s lyrics, and also teaching him to engineer. One of Brian Holland’s first engineering jobs was for a song recorded by Eddie, written as a jingle for a wine company but released as a single under the name “Briant Holland” — meaning it has often over the years been assumed to be Brian singing lead: [Excerpt: Briant Holland, “(Where’s the Joy) in Nature Boy?”] When Motown started up, Brian had become a staffer — indeed, he has later claimed that he was the very first person employed by Motown as a permanent staff member. While Eddie was out on the road performing, Brian was  writing, producing, and singing backing vocals on many, many records. We’ve already heard how he was the co-writer and producer on “Please Mr. Postman” by the Marvelettes: [Excerpt: The Marvelettes, “Please Mr. Postman”] That had obviously been a massive hit, and Motown’s first number one, but Brian was still definitely just one of the Motown team, and not as important a part of it as Berry Gordy, Smokey Robinson, or Mickey Stevenson. Meanwhile, Eddie finally had a minor hit of his own, with “Jamie”, a song co-written by Barrett Strong and Mickey Stevenson, and originally recorded by Strong — when Strong left the label, they took the backing track intended for him and had Holland record new vocals over it. [Excerpt: Eddie Holland, “Jamie”] That made the top thirty, which must have been galling at the time for Strong, who’d quit in part because he couldn’t get a hit. But the crucial thing that lifted the Holland brothers from being just parts of the Motown machine to being the most important creative forces in the company was when Brian Holland became friendly with Anne Dozier, who worked at Motown packing records, and whose husband Lamont was a singer. Lamont Dozier had been around musical people all his life — at Hutchins Junior High School, he was a couple of years below Marv Johnson, the first Motown star, he knew Freda Payne, and one of his classmates was Otis Williams, later of the Temptations. But it was another junior high classmate who, as he puts it, “lit a fire under me to take some steps to get my own music heard by the world”, when one of his friends asked him if he felt like coming along to church to hear another classmate sing. Dozier had no idea this classmate sang, but he went along, and as it happens, we have some recordings of that classmate singing and playing piano around that time: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, “There Is a Fountain Filled With Blood”] That’s fourteen-year-old Aretha Franklin, and as you can imagine, being classmates with someone who could perform like that caused Lamont Dozier to radically revise his ideas of what it was possible for him to do. He’d formed a doo-wop group called the Romeos, and they released their first single, with both sides written by Lamont, by the time he was sixteen: [Excerpt: The Romeos, “Gone Gone Get Away”] The Romeos’ third single, “Fine Fine Fine”, was picked up by Atlantic for distribution, and did well enough that Atlantic decided they wanted a follow-up, and wrote to them asking them to come into the studio. But Lamont Dozier, at sixteen, thought that he had some kind of negotiating power, and wrote back saying they weren’t interested in just doing a single, they wanted to do an album. Jerry Wexler wrote back saying “fair enough, you’re released from your contract”, and the Romeos’ brief career was over before it began. He joined the Voice Masters, the first group signed to Anna Records, and sang on records of theirs like “Hope and Pray”, the very first record ever put out by a Gordy family label: [Excerpt: The Voice Masters, “Hope and Pray”] And he’d continued to sing with them, as well as working for Anna Records doing odd jobs like cleaning the floors. His first solo record on Anna, released under the name Lamont Anthony, featured Robert White on guitar, James Jamerson on bass, Harvey Fuqua on piano, and Marvin Gaye on drums, and was based on the comic character “Popeye”: [Excerpt: Lamont Anthony, “Popeye the Sailor Man”] Unfortunately, just as that record was starting to take off, King Features Syndicate, the owners of Popeye, sent a cease and desist order. Dozier went back into the studio and recut the vocal, this time singing about Benny the Skinny Man, instead of Popeye the Sailor Man: [Excerpt: Lamont Anthony, “Benny the Skinny Man”] But without the hook of it being about Popeye, the song flopped. Dozier joined Motown when that became the dominant part of the Gordy family operation, and signed up as a songwriter and producer. Robert Batemen had just stopped working with Brian Holland as a production team, and when Anne Dozier suggested that Holland go and meet her husband who was just starting at Motown, Holland walked in to find Dozier working at the piano, writing a song but stuck for a middle section. Holland told him he had an idea, sat next to him at the piano, and came up with the bridge. The two instantly clicked musically — they discovered that they almost had a musical telepathy, and Holland got Freddie Gorman, his lyricist partner at the time, to finish up the lyrics for the song while he and Dozier came up with more ideas. That song became a Marvelettes album track, “Forever”, which a few years later would be put out as a B-side, and make the top thirty in its own right: [Excerpt: The Marvelettes, “Forever”] Holland and Dozier quickly became a strong musical team — Dozier had a great aptitude for coming up with riffs and hooks, both lyrical and musical, and rhythmic ideas, while Brian Holland could come up with great melodies and interesting chord changes, though both could do both. In the studio Brian would work with the drummers, while Lamont would work with the keyboard players and discuss the bass parts with James Jamerson. Their only shortfall was lyrically. They could both write lyrics — and Lamont would often come up with a good title or hook phrase — but they were slow at doing it. For the lyrics, they mostly worked with Freddie Gorman, and sometimes got Janie Bradford in. These teams came up with some great records, like “Contract on Love”, which sounds very like a Four Seasons pastiche but also points the way to Holland and Dozier’s later sound: [Excerpt: Little Stevie Wonder, “Contract on Love”] Both Little Stevie Wonder and the backing vocalists on that, the Temptations, would do better things later, but that’s still a solid record. Meanwhile, Eddie Holland had had a realisation that would change the course of Motown. “Jamie” had been a hit, but he received no royalties — he’d had a run of flop singles, so he hadn’t yet earned out the production costs on his records. His first royalty statement after his hit showed him still owing Motown money. He asked his brother, who got a royalty statement at the same time, if he was in the same boat, and Brian showed him the statement for several thousand dollars that he’d made from the songs he’d written. Eddie decided that he was in the wrong job. He didn’t like performing anyway, and his brother was making serious money while he was working away earning nothing. He took nine months off from doing anything other than the bare contractual minimum, — where before he would spend every moment at Hitsville, now he only turned up for his own sessions — and spent that time teaching himself songwriting. He studied Smokey Robinson’s writing, and he developed his own ideas about what needed to be in a lyric — he didn’t want any meaningless filler words, he wanted every word to matter. He also wanted to make sure that even if people misheard a line or two, they would be able to get the idea of the song from the other lines, so he came up with a technique he referred to as “repeat-fomation”, where he would give the same piece of information two or three times, paraphrasing it.  When the next Marvelettes album, The Marvellous Marvelettes, was being finished up by Mickey Stevenson, Motown got nervous about the album, thinking it didn’t have a strong enough single on it, and so Brian Holland and Dozier were asked to come up with a new Marvelettes single in a hurry. Freddie Gorman had more or less stopped songwriting by this point, as he was spending most of his time working as a postman, and so, in need of another writing partner, they called on Eddie, who had been writing with various people. The three of them wrote and produced “Locking Up My Heart”, the first single to be released with the writing credit “Holland-Dozier-Holland”: [Excerpt: The Marvelettes, “Locking Up My Heart”] That was a comparative flop for the Marvelettes, and the beginning of the downward slump we talked about for them in the episode on “Please Mr. Postman”, but the second Holland-Dozier-Holland single, recorded ten days later, was a very different matter. That one was for Martha and the Vandellas, and became widely regarded as the start of Motown’s true Golden Age — so much so that Brian and Eddie Holland’s autobiography is named after this, rather than after any of the bigger and more obvious hits they would later co-write. The introduction to “Come and Get These Memories” isn’t particularly auspicious — the Vandellas singing the chorus: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, “Come and Get These Memories”] Hearing all three of the Vandellas, all of whom have such strong, distinctive voices, sing together is if anything a bit much — the Vandellas aren’t a great harmony group in the way that some of the other Motown groups are, and they work best when everyone’s singing an individual line rather than block harmonies. But then we’re instantly into the sound that Holland, Dozier, and Holland — really Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier, who took charge of the musical side of things, with Eddie concentrating on the lyrics — would make their own. There’s a lightly swung rhythm, but with a strong backbeat with handclaps and tambourine emphasising the two and four– the same rhythmic combination that made so many of the very early rock and roll records we looked at in the first year of the podcast, but this time taken at a more sedate pace, a casual stroll rather than a sprint. There’s the simple, chorded piano and guitar parts, both instruments often playing in unison and again just emphasising the rhythm rather than doing anything more complex. And there’s James Jamerson’s wonderful, loping bass part, doing the exact opposite of what the piano and guitar are doing. [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, “Come and Get These Memories”] In almost every record in the rock and roll, soul, and R&B genres up to this point — I say “almost every” because, as I’ve said many times before, there are always exceptions and there is never a first of anything — the bass does one of two things: it either plods along just playing the root notes, or it plays a simple, repeated, ostinato figure throughout, acting as a backbone while the other instruments do more interesting things. James Jamerson is the first bass player outside the jazz and classical fields to prominently, repeatedly, do something very different — he’s got the guitars and piano holding down the rhythm so steadily that he doesn’t need to. He plays melodies, largely improvised, that are jumping around and going somewhere different from where you’d expect.  “Come and Get These Memories” was largely written before Eddie’s involvement, and the bulk of the lyric was Lamont Dozier’s. He’s said that in this instance he was inspired by country singers like Loretta Lynn, and the song’s lyrical style, taking physical objects and using them as a metaphor for emotional states, certainly seems very country: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, “Come and Get These Memories”] “Come and Get These Memories” made number twenty-nine on the pop charts and number six on the R&B charts. Martha and the Vandellas were finally stars. As was the normal practice at Motown, when an artist had a hit, the writing and production team were given the chance to make the follow-up with them, and so the followup was another Holland/Dozier/Holland song, again from an idea by Lamont Dozier, as most of their collaborations with the Vandellas would be. “Heat Wave” is another leap forward, and is quite possibly the most exciting record that Motown had put out to this point. Where “Come and Get These Memories” established the Motown sound, this one establishes the Martha and the Vandellas sound, specifically, and the style that Holland, Dozier, and Holland would apply to many of their more uptempo productions for other artists. This is the subgenre of Motown that, when it was picked up by fans in the North of England, became known as Northern Soul — the branch of Motown music that led directly to Disco, to Hi-NRG, to electropop, to the Stock-Aitken-Waterman hit factory of the eighties, to huge chunks of gay culture, and to almost all music made for dancing in whatever genre after this point. Where “Come and Get These Memories” is mid-tempo, “Heat Wave” races along. Where “Come and Get These Memories” swings, “Heat Wave” stomps. “Come and Get These Memories” has the drums swinging and the percussion accenting the backbeat, here the drums are accenting the backbeat while the tambourine is hitting every beat dead on, four/four. It’s a rhythm which has something in common with some of the Four Seasons’ contemporary hits, but it’s less militaristic than those. While “Pistol” Allen’s drumming starts out absolutely hard on the beat, he swings it more and more as the record goes on, trusting to the listener once that hard rhythm has been established, allowing him to lay back behind the beat just a little. This is where my background as a white English man, who has never played music for dancing — when I tried to be a musician myself, it was jangly guitar pop I was playing — limits me. I have a vocabulary for chords and for melodies, but when it comes to rhythms, at a certain point my vocabulary goes away, and all I can do is say “just… *listen*” It’s music that makes you need to dance, and you can either hear that or you can’t — but of course, you can: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, “Heat Wave”] And Martha Reeves’ voice is perfect for the song. Most female Motown singers were pop singers first and foremost — some of them, many of them, *great* pop singers, but all with voices fundamentally suited to gentleness. Reeves was a belter. She has far more blues and gospel influence in her voice than many of the other Motown women, and she’s showing it here. “Heat Wave” made the top ten, as did the follow-up, a “Heat Wave” soundalike called “Quicksand”. But the two records after that, both still Holland/Dozier/Holland records, didn’t even make the top forty, and Annette left, being replaced by Betty Kelly. The new lineup of the group were passed over to Mickey Stevenson, for a record that would become the one for which they are best remembered to this day. It wasn’t as important a record in the development of the Motown sound as “Come and Get These Memories” or “Heat Wave”, but “Dancing in the Street” was a masterpiece. Written by Stevenson, Marvin Gaye, and Ivy Joe Hunter, it features Gaye on drums, but the most prominent percussive sound is Hunter, who, depending on which account you read was either thrashing a steel chain against something until his hands bled, or hitting a tire iron.  And Martha’s vocal is astonishing — and has an edge to it. Apparently this was the second take, and she sounds a little annoyed because she absolutely nailed the vocal on the first take only to find that there’d been a problem recording it. [Excerpt: Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, “Dancing in the Street”] That went to number two in the charts, and would be the group’s cultural and commercial high point. The song also gained some notoriety two years later when, in the wake of civil rights protests that were interpreted as rioting, the song was interpreted as being a call to riot — it was assumed that instead of being about dancing it was actually about rioting, something the Rolling Stones would pick up on later when they released “Street Fighting Man”, a song that owes more than a little to the Vandellas classic. The record after that, “Wild One”, was so much of a “Dancing in the Streets” soundalike that I’ve seen claims that the backing track is an alternate take of the earlier song. It isn’t, but it sounds like it could be. But the record after that saw them reunited with Holland/Dozier/Holland, who provided them with yet another great track, “Nowhere to Run”: [Excerpt: Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, “Nowhere to Run”] For the next few years the group would release a string of classic hits, like “Jimmy Mack” and “Honey Chile”, but the rise of the Supremes, who we’ll talk about in a month, meant that like the Marvelettes before them the Vandellas became less important to Motown. When Motown moved from Detroit to LA in the early seventies, Martha was one of those who decided not to make the move with the label, and the group split up, though the original lineup occasionally reunited for big events, and made some recordings for Ian Levine’s Motorcity label. Currently, there are two touring Vandellas groups. One, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, consists of Martha and two of her sisters — including Lois, who was a late-period member of the group before they split, replacing Betty in 1967. Meanwhile “The Original Vandellas” consist of Rosalind and Annette. Gloria died in 2000, but Martha and the Vandellas are one of the very few sixties hitmaking groups where all the members of their classic lineup are still alive and performing. Martha, Rosalind, Betty, Annette, and Lois were all also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, becoming only the second all-female group to be inducted.  The Vandellas were one of the greatest of the Motown acts, and one of the greatest of the girl groups, and their biggest hits stand up against anything that any of the other Motown acts were doing at the time. When you hear them now, even almost sixty years later, you’re still hearing the sound they were in at the birth of, the sound of young America.  

Can someone be too smart or important to get sober in A.A.? My guest, Scott B. had his Ph.D. in neurobiology and an accelerating career in medical research to dispel any notions of being an alcoholic or drug addict. His superior intelligence, unflappable ego, and iron-will would shield him from the realities of a life rapidly falling apart around him. But his journey into the dark regions of substance abuse ultimately brought him to his knees as a ravaged and demoralized subject of King Alcohol and Lady Cocaine. Increasingly frequent use quickened the downward spiral of his life and career. Intelligence and will power alone were not enough to save him. Teetering on the edge of the abyss, a single lifeline, in the form of a crafty intervention by his colleagues and friends, was thrown to him. Clinging onto it as only the hopeless can, he finally let that lifeline pull him into treatment and A.A. After nearly 33 years of sobriety, Scott gratefully reflects on that crucial turning point that grew into a brilliant career, a fulfilling life, and daily service to others. His wonderous story is one that needs to be told. More importantly, it's one that needs to be heard by anyone, anywhere who reaches out for help. Visit the AA Recovery Interviews website for more information and to contact me, Howard L. To contact Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, visit aa.org. Check out Howard's Big Book Podcast, the complete unabridged audio version of the First and Second Editions of Alcoholics Anonymous. The Big Book Podcast is an engaging word-for-word reading of all 11 chapters and more than 50 original stories most people have never seen. If you've only read the Fourth Edition, these amazing stories will be brand new to you. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Or listen on https://bigbookpodcast.com [Disclaimer: In accordance with A.A.'s traditions, my anonymous guests and I speak for ourselves only, not for Alcoholics Anonymous at large. We share only our personal experiences with A.A. recovery. We acknowledge that AA's sole concern is the recovery and continued sobriety of those alcoholics who turn to the Fellowship for help. As members of AA, our primary purpose is to stay sober and to help other alcoholics achieve sobriety.]

speaking in 2010

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