Motown Music

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