Transcript GOOD VIBRATIONS”

THE DEMISE OF
ROCK AND THE
PROMISE OF
SOUL
CHAPTER 3
SPLITTING UP THE MARKET
• Brill Building
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Teen pop music
Both a place and a stylistic label
Aldon Music
Brill Building approach
• Artist was not at the center of the process
• Return to the way business had been done pre-rock
The Brill Building:
Rock ’n’ Roll’s Tin Pan Alley
Located at 1619 Broadway in New York
City, which once housed Tin Pan Alley
publishers
During the 1960s, home to a new wave of
pop-rock songwriting teams
Rock ’n’ roll’s vertical Tin Pan Alley
Singer-songwriters and songwriting teams:
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Barry Mann and Cynthia Weill
Carole King and Gerry Goffin
Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield
SPLITTING UP THE MARKET
• Teen Idols
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Cast as potential boyfriends
Frankie Avalon
Bobby Rydell
Bobby Darin
Neil Sedaka
THE RISE OF THE PRODUCER
• What is a producer?
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A&R, matching artists and repertoire
Hiring musicians
Had crucial decision-making authority
Development of ambitious attitudes toward pop
• Musical sophistication
• Trademark “sound”
• Record is more than a recorded live performance
THE RISE OF THE PRODUCER
• Leiber and Stoller
• Music for Elvis
• “Hound Dog”
• “Jailhouse Rock”
• “Don’t”
• Early 50s rhythm and blues
• Spark Records
• Atlantic Records
• Maintained independence
THE RISE OF THE PRODUCER
• Leiber and Stoller
• Coasters
• Playlets
• “Smokey Joe’s Cafe”
• “Little Egypt”
THE RISE OF THE PRODUCER
• Girl Groups
• Songwriting teams
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Sedaka/Greenfield
King/Goffin
Weil/Mann
Berry/Greenwich
• Mostly black female groups
• Solo female singers
• Controlled by industry
• Producers and songwriters had creative control over music
THE RISE OF THE PRODUCER
• Phil Spector
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Worked under Leiber and Stoller
Ambitious producer
Girl-group pop
Signature “wall of sound”
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“Da Doo Ron Ron,” Crystals
“Then He Kissed Me,” Crystals
“Be My Baby,” Ronettes
“You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feelin’,” Righteous Brothers
PHIL SPECTOR: PRODUCER AS ARTIST
Phil Spector (b. 1940)
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“The first tycoon of teen”
During the 1960s, he established the role of the record
producer as creative artist.
At age seventeen, he had a Number One record as a
member of the vocal group the Teddy Bears, whose hit
song “To Know Him Is to Love Him” he composed and
produced.
PHIL SPECTOR: PRODUCER AS ARTIST
In 1960, Spector became an assistant to
Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller; he coproduced “Stand by Me” by Ben E. King
(1961).
By the early 1960s, Spector had established
himself as a songwriting producer.
At age twenty-one, he was in charge of his
own independent label, Philles Records.
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He supervised every aspect of his records’
sound.
“The Wall of Sound”
The characteristic Philles sound was
remarkably dense yet clear. It became
known as the “wall of sound.”
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Multiple instruments doubling each part of the
arrangement
Huge amount of echo, known as reverberation
or “reverb”
Carefully controlled balance so that the vocals
were pushed clearly to the front
The thick texture and presence of strings
on these records led them to be called
“teenage symphonies.”
Listening: “Be My Baby”
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Composed by Phil Spector, Ellie Greenwich, and
Jeff Barry
Performed by the Ronettes
Number Two, 1963
This was one of the biggest hits among the many
produced by Spector. It is an excellent illustration
of Spector’s “wall of sound.”
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Full orchestral string section
Pianos
Full array of rhythm instruments
Background chorus
Simple but effective verse-chorus form
Drum pattern opens the song, is an effective hook
PHIL SPECTOR: PRODUCER AS ARTIST
Recorded at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles
with a group of studio musicians known as
“the “wrecking crew”
Preferred the sound of female vocal groups
and spearheaded the rise in popularity of the
“girl group” phenomenon of the early 1960s
Retired from steady writing and production
work in 1966
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By age twenty-five, his star was on the wane, and
he became a troubled recluse.
BERRY GORDY JR. AND MOTOWN
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Berry Gordy (b. 1929)
Expert songwriter and producer who created
blues- and gospel-based pop music designed to
appeal to the widest possible listening public.
MOTOWN RECORDS
• Named after the “Motor town” or “Motor
city” of Detroit, the automobile production
capital of the America
• Founded in 1960 by Berry Gordy
• Became the first black-owned and controlled indie record company to rise to
“major label” status
• Gordy started the company in a converted
house on West Grand Blvd. A sign hung over
the doorway read “HITSVILLE, U.S.A.”
Gordy’s Image for Motown
• Soul music based on the doo-wop vocal
group tradition
• Slick, cosmopolitan sound—“appealing to
the ear”
• Carefully constructed musical arrangements
overseen by Gordy
• In-house songwriting and production teams
for a sense of consistency
• The house band, called the Funk Brothers,
was used to back up and inspire the
vocalists.
• Bass player James Jamerson
• Drummer Benny Benjamin
• Keyboardist Earl Van Dyke
SPLITTING UP THE MARKET
• Folk music
• College-age listeners
• Music that seemed more real that commercial pop
• Populist characters
• Untutored quality of folksingers
• Break with the norms of middle-class life
• Almost anyone could play it
• Brief fascination with Caribbean music
• Importance of album sales
Listening: “My Girl”
• Composed and produced by Smokey Robinson and Ronald
White
• Performed by the Temptations (Number One, 1965)
• Moderate-tempo love ballad in verse-chorus form
• A cumulative layering of sounds gives the song a feeling of
steadily increasing passion and intensity:
• Repeated solo bass motive establishes beat
• Lead guitar enters with a memorable melodic figure
• Drums and lead voice enter, followed by subtle background
vocals
• Brass enter at the first chorus
• Orchestral strings are added to the accompaniment
• The second verse brings new brass fanfares in response to the
lead vocalist’s calls.
• There is an instrumental interlude dominated by strings before
the third verse.
• A dramatic upward key change takes place right before the
concluding verse and chorus.
Listening: “You Can’t Hurry Love”
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Composed by Holland-Dozier-Holland;
produced by Brian Holland and Lamont
Dozier
Performed by the Supremes (Number One,
1966)
Cleverly written, innovatively structured
Motown pop song
The formal structure of the song reflects the
meaning. “You Can’t Hurry Love” is
about the importance of waiting.
Listening: “You Can’t Hurry Love”
• The opening A section is very short, half the length of the next
B and C sections.
• It is unclear whether the A section functions as an introduction or a
short verse.
• The basic chord progressions of the A and B sections are
virtually identical.
• The C section introduces a striking chord and melody change.
• The B and C sections alternate—an unorthodox verse-chorus
form
• The words of the chorus are not exactly the same.
• The A section (played twice through) returns unexpectedly
with a vengeance.
• There is an ambiguous section based on chords from the A
and B sections
• Finally, the voice enters with the B section and fades to an
ending.
MOTOWN
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During Motown’s heyday in the mid1960s, Gordy’s music empire included eight
record labels, a management service, and a
publishing company.
From 1964 to 1967, Motown had fourteen
Number One pop singles, twenty Number One
R&B singles, forty-six additional Top 15 pop
singles, and seventy-five additional Top 15
R&B singles. In 1966, seventy-five percent of
Motown's releases made the charts.