A dancefloor-centric selection of recent vault discoveries by the men of 1960s Motown, including 16 previously unissued masters.
Motown was always the sound of dance music. During the novelty dance era in the early 1960s, the company celebrated the Twist, the Monkey, the Jerk, the Twine and even the Uncle Willie as these crazes came and went. By the mid-60s Motown had begun to turn their kind of dance music into an art form, with the rhythm section of the Funk Brothers providing the underpinning and the string and horn arrangements of Paul Riser (among others) supplying the sweetening on top. As the 60s drew to a close and the Motown sound began to give way in popularity to funk and subsequently disco, Motown dance music found a new body of fans in England, whose devotion to the genre continues to this day.
“One Track Mind!” – the second in our series of releases by the men of 1960s Motown – takes a tour through the vaults to discover some lost treasures of dance music. Eight of the selections are otherwise available only as mp3 downloads. The remaining 16 are previously unissued in any format.
Northern soul hero Frank Wilson opens the collection. All but two of the tracks here were recorded at Hitsville USA Studio in Detroit but ‘I’ll Be Satisfied’ was cut in California and shows that Los Angeles’ Wrecking Crew were perfectly capable of reproducing the solid four-on-the-floor sound the Funk Brothers regularly turned out back at home base. This seems to be the last of the half-dozen sides Frank recorded for Motown to be released. We saved the best for last!
“Dance Music – it’s all very well but is it Art?” asked Bunk Dogger in a song from his album “The Great Detective”. Discuss among yourselves, but here at Ace the answer is a resounding affirmative. From the joyous if primitive sound of Popcorn Wylie to the sophisticated soul of the Fantastic Four, we hope there’s something here for even the most armchair-bound dance music fans of today.
Keith Hughes
