Growing up, I listened and was influenced by a lot of those around me. I have a big family, and my dad listened to ’80s music, my mom listened to Motown, my brother listened to reggae, and my granddad was the one that got me into jazz and swing music.
Growing up, I was listening to a ton of Motown music, Otis Redding, Aretha, and then there was the Beatles and Led Zeppelin and Janis Joplin. These were all people that I felt as though they truly felt every single lyric they said, and they weren’t afraid of imperfection.
Definitely just growing up in general influenced me; Detroit happened to be where I was. I feel like the city definitely has made an impact on my life and made me who I am. Detroit has an unmistakable soul – nobody can duplicate the soul we bring to the game. From Motown to J Dilla to Eminem to anything.
Sometimes you’re inspired by an old-school song that you want to chop up and make a sample out of it. I find that with a lot of older Motown music.
‘Head Over Boots’ is a shuffle, but it’s more of a Motown laid-back shuffle than, say, a Dwight Yoakam shuffle.
And for some reason, when I’m sad, I do listen to Leonard Cohen, I do listen to Joni Mitchell. I do find myself going to the music that’s actually reflecting my mood, as opposed to sticking on Motown, which might actually bring my mood up.
When we did a lot of that Motown stuff there were four of us on the front line. When we started the evening we’d start from one end of the band and just go along. The lead singer would change all the time. That’s the first time that I actually managed to put it into a record.
Motown will always be a heavy-duty part of my life because those are my roots.
Kelly Clarkson definitely reminds me of Motown. She’s pop, but she’s also very, very soulful.
Motown was pop, Atlantic was R&B.
I listen to a lot of oldies stuff. Some Motown, Michael Jackson, jazz, etc.
My dad liked a lot of Motown, but I didn’t listen to it until my teenage years.
At an early age I was listening to BB King, what have you. Ray Charles, Jimmy Smith, Jimmy Mcgriff, you dig? With the obvious Marvin Gayes and the Motown records.
The Great Migration changed American history not just for the migrants but for all of us. It made possible American cultural milestones like the Harlem Renaissance, Chicago blues, and Motown, just to name a few.
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.
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.
Everyone you talk to in the world, whether they know it or not, because the catalog is so vast, a lot of times people have favorite songs that are Motown songs that they didn’t even know were Motown songs.
My introduction to Motown was through The Jackson Five and Michael Jackson. Michael’s been my greatest creative inspiration, so that’s how I really became familiar with Motown as a whole, and as I got older, I learned far more about the other groups.
‘Let’s Get It On’ is a classic Motown single, endlessly repeatable and always enjoyable.
I left Motown because of the regime of people who were there.
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.
My favorite record label of all time is Motown. That era of music was my favorite.
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 music diet growing up was lots of sugar. Lots of retro-pop sugar. Motown, disco. A lot of English rock, like the Turtles, the Zombies, Bowie and stuff like that.
I grew up with Cher and Motown, beautiful costumes.
When I first got to Motown, Smokey was already a fixture there. To me, he is one of the greatest songwriters and poets, so anything they ask me to do for Smokey is going to get a yes.
One thing I can say about the Motown acts is that we were a family. That’s not a myth.
There were many stars in Motown’s firmament – among them, Stevie, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Martha Reeves and Diana Ross – but I happen to have loved the Four Tops most of all.
I knew I wanted to do music at eight years of age. I listened to a lot of Motown growing up, and it got to the point where I started mimicking people – Michael Jackson or whoever. People started to notice I could hold a tone. The bug was always there.
Growing up, I never listened to English music. I was more into Motown, as well as early rock n’ roll like Chuck Berry and Little Richard.
I think there’s a void for some authentic soul music with an edge. I think there’s some people who grew up with Motown and Stevie Wonder that still can appreciate Future, Drake, and all these different things, too, but there shouldn’t be a void for those people, as well.
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