Motown & Memphis

BY PHILIP STEVENSON

It's the mid-60s and tubes are glowing hot in studios from 30th Street to Abbey Road. Wheels are in motion and the legacy of Leonard Chess and Sam Phillips is welling up in the ears of America. In Detroit, Berry Gordy is alchemizing the collective genius of Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, James Jamerson, Benny Benjamin and a host of others with his own, to forge a juggernaut of sonic power and consistency equal to anything before or since. It swings like a motherfucker and it sounds like gold. The staff and musicians work hard, doing takes over and over until they get them right. They try multiple mixes and follow them all the way to acetate before deciding on a winner. In the mastering room, Bob Olhsson is cutting vinyl on "Signed, Sealed, Delivered", another fluid combination of muscle and sweetness that jumps off the needle. It will hit #1 on the R&B charts. This is Motown and it is beautiful. Recently Bob moved to Nashville and he's excited. Astoundingly, after working with some of the most talented people of his generation, Bob is still optimistic and hopeful about the future of aesthetics in the labyrinthine, difficult world that is popular music. He's still working, and poetically enough, he's even starting to cut vinyl again. He is disarming, friendly, and generous with his time. There's no hint of professional jealousy or egoism. Most mysteries can never be looked into; they fade into hearsay and rhetorical inventions. Talking with Bob, I felt lucky that he's not about those vain distortions. He reflects on things too clearly. He's our window.