The Noteworthy Band is pleased to be able to offer to offer live music in your Motown favorites!
Click Here to view the band’s song list of live music that can be performed at your event!
Examples of Motown songs and music:
“Stop! In the Name Of Love,” The Supremes
“I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch),” The Four Tops
“Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” The Temptations
“My Guy,” Mary Wells
Motown music is both a style of music and a label. Motown started as a straight R&B label and later moved into genres from Psychedelic Soul to New Jack Swing. The typical Motown song was a bright, uptempo number done as a 2/4 shuffle or a hard 4/4 beat. Lyrically it dealt almost exclusively with romance, with love won and lost; it also typically featured a very elaborate production which included a sax-heavy, rhythmic brass section, sweet strings, glockenspiel or other bells, and a surprisingly funky bass line, usually provided by the legendary James Jamerson. Solos were generally eschewed in favor of pop songcraft, and singers typically walked the line between hardcore gospel testifying and smooth jazz balladry. Most Motown songs were written on piano and based on a piano riff, although there were occasional ballads that broke the mold (the Temptations’ “My Girl”). As the Sixties wore on, soul got grittier and more socially aware, and while the better Motown artists made the transition with spectacular results (Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye), others, like the Supremes’ Diana Ross, were forced to go pop to compete. The Motown Sound gradually faded, but has never left the public consciousness in America or the UK; in the Eighties, it sparked a mini-revival among MTV bands who’d grown up on the genre.
COMMONLY REQUESTED SONGS:
AIN’T TOO PROUD TO BEG temptations
AIN’T NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH ashford and simpson
BAD MAMA JAMA-S.WONDER
CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF YOUR LOVE barry white
CHAIN OF FOOLS aretha franklin
DANCIN IN THE STREETS martha and the vandelles
GET READY temptations
GET UP (SEX MACHINE) james brown
HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE temptations
I FEEL GOOD james brown
I GOT THE FEELIN- JAMES BROWN
I’LL BE THERE jackson 5
I WANT YOU BACK jackson 5
KEEP ME HANGIN ON kim wilde
MIDNIGHT HOUR blues brothers
MUSTANG SALLY the rascals
MY GIRL tempations
PAPA’S GOT A BRAND NEW BAG-JAMES BROWN
PAPA WAS A ROLLIN STONE temptations
PROUD MARY tina turner
RESCUE ME aretha franklin
RESPECT aretha franklin
SEX MACHINE james brown
SIGNED SEALED DELIVERED stevie wonder
SOUL MAN blues brothers
STOP IN THE NAME OF LOVE diana ross
SUGAR PIE four tops
THINK aretha franklin
YOU CAN’T HURRY LOVE supremes
