Motown Quotes

Ron White was not one of the very first original members of the Motown staff, but eventually he was.

I stumbled into soul music at a very young age. It had something that really spoke to me. Nowadays it's not only American gospel or soul music, it's whenever somebody decides to do music in a way that's honest and passionate. I got into the Motown songs. It had to do with where I come from - we don't really have that where I come from, the sense of mystery and the pain. Sweden has been a wealthy and happy country for some time now. I think I got really drawn to that.

Artist development is something that I've been passionate about from my days at Uptown and Motown Records.

People still look at Michael Jackson as being a Motown artist.

The influence is really all over the place. Detroit, definitely because of Motown and Stooges. When you come from a place like Detroit, you're really proud of what you have there.

I feel Motown really exploited me.

I often call Daptone the Motown and Stax of today. But in some ways it's different. At Motown, a lot of the musicians didn't get recognized, music got stolen, and people didn't get paid. Or the label would just throw them a pinch of money for their songs. That is one thing we're not doing. Anything anyone writes here, we get a percentage.

Once you're a Motown artist, that's your stigmatism, and I was there from the very first day

I grew up around music. My father was a professional musician. We used to have a trailer house that we travelled in. I've always loved music. Started out loving to sing to the standards and songs of the early 50s, then that interest shifted to rock and roll, Motown, folk.

Motown's policy was to build one act at a time or their favorites.

One thing I can say about the Motown acts is that we were a family. That's not a myth

Once you're a Motown artist, you're always a Motown artist

Motown was the mecca. It was every writer's dream to work there.

I love Motown, that whole era. Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson. I just put on Pandora, and put it on Motown, and it makes me smile; makes me smile so much.

My parents had a huge pile of records - vinyl! - that I loved, especially the Motown stuff, Steely Dan, Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding.

I love to sing old Motown songs to myself, or some Patti Smith Edith Piaf or Billie Holiday. That gets me in the mood for singing.

I don't ever balk at being considered a Motown person, because Motown is the greatest musical event that ever happened in the history of music

Motown, Motown, that's my era. Those are my people.

Motown will always be a heavy-duty part of my life because those are my roots

Growing up, I liked all the stuff that everyone else was listening to, like Motown, but the biggest group of all was The Beatles.

I grew up listening to oldies, like Motown. That's from my mom.

My parents brought me up on all different styles of music, like my Mum would listen to Motown R&B and my Dad was quite 80's driven, so I was always surrounded by music growing up.

With the '60s era and Motown, my grandparents actually introduced us to that when I was younger, so I grew up listening to the Jackson Five, Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, The Supremes and Diana Ross' solo stuff. I just loved it.

I know that's blasphemous when you are from Detroit, but I was never a fan of Motown stuff. I don't care for the production much.

I grew up not far from where Motown was founded, maybe 300 miles from Detroit and I've always liked - I used to like the way they made records. I still do, I just haven't had a chance to hear as much. They used to entertain me.

Ali Woodson was one of the few Iconic Soul-Singers left from the Motown Era that could STILL sell out a crowd, light up a party, & make the women scream! Ali & I have loved, fought, flew & cruised these United States together. His raspy but golden tones will be missed but his music, acting & friendship will last in my heart 4-ever.

I never went to the Beatles' concerts to scream. I never screamed at anybody's show. I was on my feet with the entire, all of the crowned heads of Motown, and we were shrieking our guts out.

I grew up listening to a lot of that stuff, Motown and Stooges. But also early rock-and-roll like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley. I feel like as I grew older, I've been working with different musicians, people that have are constantly showing me different things.

That culture, of looking at catchy music as a negative thing, is weird. It has nothing to do with me, or the music I was into growing up. The Stones and the Beatles only tried to write hits. Every Motown song, every Credence Clearwater song - they were trying to write hits.

When I was a kid in the mid-'60s, I was what's known as a moddie boy, a prototype skinhead. You all had your hair like a crew cut, cropped, with suits or Levis with red suspenders, sometimes Doc Martens. It was a thriving soul music, Motown and ska scene; we used to dance to Prince Buster and the Skatalites.

I was never really that interested in the punk movement. I was a blues guy: I liked Motown, James Brown.

I was really fortunate growing up to have a broad musical education. My parents listened to all kinds of music, rock, soul, Motown, jazz, Frank Sinatra, everything.

I stand humbled on bended knee but, of course, the response to that would be 'Duh!' And to be given that incredible honor means that I represent the piss and vinegar, the energy, the defiance, the musicality of the Funk Brothers and Motown and Mitch Ryder and Bob Seger, Brownsville Station and Grand Funk Railroad and Eminem and Jack White and Kid Rock - are you kidding me?

Motown was about music for all people – white and black, blue and green, cops and the robbers. I was reluctant to have our music alienate anyone.

The Beatles were huge. And the first thing they said when you interviewed them, 'Oh yeah, we grew up on Motown.'..They were the first white act to admit they grew up listening to black music.

Those original, black, spirited, defiant, rebellious musical masters. Chuck Berry was one of the first masters of Les Paul's new electric guitar; he pretty much laid down the gauntlet, and I don't think anybody's ever beat him since. Way before the British Invasion, I was tuned into the black guys that created the British Invasion. Without Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Lightnin' Hopkins, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and the Motown hits, there would be no Beatles.

My dad was a soul fan and a singer himself, and he loved vocal harmony, stuff like the Beach Boys and Motown like the Four Tops, which was a big influence on me.

There's no love in my songs. There's just a lot of resentment. Just bad attitude. But that's intentional, that's what I like. I love the whole idea of Motown. Their idea was to sing how down on their luck they were, but the song implied hope that it would get better. I liked that idea, and I wanted to go even further with it.

I've performed in Auburn Hills, at The Palace, so I haven't really been in downtown Detroit, but I've been able to be here, and I can really see, what the city was. Like, I can feel why Motown started here and how amazing it was.

I don't think you can recreate anything from the past. You can not do it. If you're going to go out and imitate a Motown sound, you can't do it, it's impossible because of the studios and players involved and the atmosphere.

A big part of the Motown formula was, they took music and turned it into this sort of automotive assembly line. They were cranking out 10 songs a day in that studio, or more.

When I joined, I was one of the first artists to sign on to the Motown West label when they opened their first studio in California. At the studio, you'd run into Stevie Wonder, you'd run into Marvin Gaye…it was very special.

I grew up in Ann Arbor, about 25 miles west of Detroit. And when you grow up in that area, you get a healthy dose of Motown automatically.

I've discovered that Motown and Broadway have a lot in common - a family of wonderfully talented, passionate, hardworking young people, fiercely competitive but also full of love and appreciation for the work, for each other and for the people in the audience.

The only recording studio was in Motown - it was called Tamla/Motown at that time and we used to audition there because Smokey Robinson was at that studio and Berry Gordy was the president. I remember asking Smokey to listen to my group and he did. For the first couple of years we were just singing background. We used to back up Marvin Gaye; Mary Wells was there then, Marv Johnson, the Marvelettes, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Junior Walker and the All-Stars.

Well, I had an after hours club in Vancouver and when any of the Motown acts would call.

I have this ability to find this hidden talent in people that sometimes even they didn't know they had.

For me, the highlight was meeting all the Motown acts, as I adore black soul music. I met Stevie Wonder who I love, and Diana Ross And The Supremes. I also met The Carpenters. I was actually there in the studio when they recorded We've Only Just Begun.

There's no reason - not yet, anyway - to believe [Bob] Dylan himself endorses such an attitude; or that he would think of himself as a more profound and worthy recipient than, for instance, any of the brilliant Motown or girl-group lyricists who are more likely to be awarded a Nobel prize for chemistry than for literature. Whether there is more truth and humanity in his best lyrics than in Abba's, or less, is unquantifiable, and it would be meretricious to attempt such a calculation in contesting an argument he has been dragged into.

My tastes range all over the place, from vocal standards to Motown to 70s funk & soul to 80s pop to film scores to artists like R.E.M., Ben Folds, Prince, Annie Lennox, the Police, Elvis Costello, Cat Stevens, the Ditty Bops, local bands that friends of mine are in, and the list goes on... I have no single favorite genre or artist.