Of course, the romantic merit of Motown’s
music has never been seriously maligned, but in this volume, editor and
songwriter Herb Jordan presents lyrics like poems, separated from their
bass lines, and assesses their impact, explaining, “The teenage apostles
of boy-girl love became standard-bearers of a spiritual, universal
love.”
-- Lauren Waterman,
Fashion Rocks/Condé Nast Publications (September, 2006)
The book opens
with an insightful, contextual introduction about Detroit in the 1960s
-- the environment that inspired and nurtured such local legends as
Smokey, Stevie Wonder, the Funk Brothers, the Holland Brothers and
Lamont Dozier… The music itself…was innovative. But the lyrics
interlocking with the melodies were often rich -- easy, colloquial
language articulating profound ideas of love and self-reflection. The
words became everyman's poetry. The lessons they imparted were indelible
and true…The lyrics on the pages of Motown in Love pull you in.
Without the urgent backbeats and caramel vocals, the stories become even
more revealing.
-- Rashod D. Ollison, Baltimore Sun (Nov. 2, 2006)
The love songs of Motown Records
have long been the catalyst of millions of romantic nights. The mellow
melodies and harmonies won the hearts of many, but award-winning
composer and producer Herb Jordan believes falling in love to Motown was
more than being entranced by the rhythms…
The project is a fine relief and a reminder that there are more elements
to music than a great bass line. And because there probably isn’t much
debate that the lyrics of yesteryear are more eloquent than those on the
airwaves today, “Motown In Love” is a welcome reference.
-- Kenya M. Yarbrough, EURweb/Electronic Urban Report (Nov. 7, 2006)
There’s a fabulous book that’s…out, this
is going to be such a great holiday gift -- Motown in Love Lyrics
from the Golden Era. Our favorite songs…we can just go to this book
and really sing along and know what we’re singing. We urge you to get
this book. It is a gem, it is a treasure!
-- Patty
Jackson, WDAS-FM, Philadelphia, PA (Nov. 7, 2006)
One would think, with good reason, that
everything that could be said or written about Motown had been
already…But, until now, there had been no special focus on the lyrics of
the songs that made Motown the enduring champion that it is. Herb
Jordan, who edited the just-published book “Motown in Love: Lyrics
From the Golden Era” (published by Pantheon), has described the
lyrics to these songs as poetry. The “poets” include Edward Holland,
Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland, Mickey Stevenson, Sylvia Moy, Smokey
Robinson…Nickolas Ashford, Valerie Simpson…Marvin Gaye, among
others…Featuring the words to well over 100 Motown songs, the book is
also a bonanza for people who want to “sing along”, who were never sure
about certain lyrics, or who want to do their own analysis… “Motown
in Love: Lyrics From the Golden Era” is a should-have for Motown
fans and songwriting aficionados.
-- Steve Holsey, Michigan Chronicle (Nov. 8-14, 2006)
I haven't
memorized the lyrics to an entire song since the 1980s… But author Herb
Jordan is making me realize that I didn't even know the lyrics to the
songs that I thought I knew. His new book, "Motown in Love: Lyrics
from the Golden Era," is a collection of the lyrics from Detroit's
unforgettable songwriters… Jordan's goal was to point out the complex
beauty of the seemingly simple Motown songbook…
-- Desiree Cooper, Detroit Free Press (Nov. 14, 2006)
If songs are
poetry set to music, then songs stripped of music must be poetry. This
idea is put to the test by Motown in Love: Lyrics from the Golden Era…which
reproduces the lyrics from the classic Motown era, featuring every love
song from "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" to "You've Really Got a Hold
On Me."
-- Michael Jackman, Metro Times Detroit (Nov. 22, 2006)
“Motown in Love”…is a simple, yet moving tribute to some of the biggest and most successful songs recorded by the premier Black music label…listeners of songs from those turbulent days of the 1960s and early ‘70s will appreciate “Motown in Love” for resurrecting what some would describe as the quintessential period of music for many African-Americans…the book will provide enjoyment and pleasure for readers as they travel back to a time when music from talented African-American artists were all housed under one roof – Motown!
-- Glenn Townes, The New York Amsterdam News (Nov. 23-29, 2006)
Enter
composer-producer Herb Jordan, who has risen to the occasion with
Motown
In Love: Lyrics from the Golden Era,
a compilation of lyrics from more than 100 classic songs… You'll be
amazed at how much the lyrics touch your heart -- and relieved to find a
myriad of songs that will satisfy everyone…
--
Lori Fradkin,
New York
Magazine Winter 2006 Wedding Guide
Motown in Love…
evokes a
time when the romance of love songs dominated the musical dialogue and
speaks eloquently to the ability of music and lyrics to define,
transform, and unite. This book, with its short and potent introduction,
lovingly places the music of 1950s and '60s Motown in a political,
cultural, and creative context.
--
Jill Nelson,
Nia Voices (Nov. 29, 2006)
Jordan…presents
the luminous masterworks of Motown bards…as if they were poetry. Which,
of course, they are. He also frames them in an interesting historical
context —that
gushingly loving declarations like Ashford and Simpson's
You're All I Need To Get
By
and Smokey's My Guy were groundbreaking Civil Rights-era, pop
culture proof of
romantic, non-sleazy love between
African-Americans.
--
Leslie Gray Streeter, Palm Beach Post (Nov. 29, 2006)
…this
collection represents the vibrant love songs that include some of the
greatest love songs of all time. If you remember the wonderful sounds of
Motown, stop, in the name of love, and enjoy the high energy and
emotional depths of these marvelous poignant lyrics.
--
Larry Cox, Tucson Citizen (Nov. 30, 2006)
Collected by
scholar-composer Herb Jordan, Motown in Love illustrates how the
indie label's many muses shaped pop music… Songs such as "My Girl,"
"Heard It Through the Grapevine," and "Stop! In the Name of Love"
weren't only sophisticated poetry without a whit of awkwardness; they
also taught rhyme, assonance, metaphor, simile, and meter with a lotta
heart and a lotta soul. Forget the finger-popping beats and stellar
musicianship: A Motown lyric is as emotional a declaration of love then
as now.
--
Margaret Moser, The Austin
Chronicle (Dec. 1, 2006)
This collection
of some of the imprint’s most notable lyrics gives the songwriters who
toiled on the Motown assembly line some well-deserved shine. Some of
the songs here are classics – Ashford and Simpson’s 1967 “Ain’t No
Mountain High Enough”, Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong’s 1968 “I
Heard It Through the Grapevine.” But though many of the themes are
universal – something Motown’s lyricists specialized in – it was
ultimately the voice of African-American struggle and the strive towards
success that made the lyrics truly compelling.
-- Mark Anthony Neal, VIBE (December, 2006)
I had never thought of Motown lyrics as
poetry, but this volume makes a case that some of them…deserve to be
considered as such… Many of them were perfect – or as close to it as any
human heart and imagination can come.
--
Tom Robotham, Portfolio
Weekly, Hampton Roads, VA (Dec. 5, 2006)
Jordan describes these love songs as sort
of period pieces, from a time of great social change, a time of optimism
about life and love, a time when romance was quite possible. He makes a
good case…
--
Linda Brinson, RelishNow,
Winston-Salem Journal (Dec. 10, 2006)
The songs of the golden era of Motown
transcended race, genre and age: They are songs for everyone, for
anyone… This is a book that deserves to be on the shelf of every
aspiring musician, every fan of the classic Motown catalog, and every
student of American culture.
--
Jill Froebel, Art Voice,
Buffalo, NY (Dec. 11, 2006, Vol.5, No. 50)
…If a disagreement comes up over the words
to Motown tunes, go ahead and look up the words to some of the most
soulful lyrics ever written inside Motown in Love…
--
Robin James, Minnesota
Spokesman-Recorder (Dec. 13, 2006)
The recently published book “Motown
in Love” is the perfect companion to the movie [Dreamgirls]…the
lyrics are an excellent record of the changes that occurred in Detroit
and across the entire U.S. during the 1960s…Motown was the type of scene
for which music lovers today yearn…Valuable
as a reference book and a must have for die-hard fans, “Motown in Love”
successfully packages an entire movement into a dust jacket, along with
a few pictures and a lot of nostalgia.
--
Courtney Denison, The Wire, Portsmouth, NH (Dec. 20, 2006)
I became even more convinced of the music's
lessons in our culture as I looked at…
"Motown in Love: Lyrics from the Golden
Era." The book of …the best of the Motown lyricists might surprise
people who spend too much time listening to pop radio …Because something
that strong existed in popular music it is hard to believe that it has
largely disappeared…Sometimes a revolution of consciousness
arrives…"Motown in Love: Lyrics from the Golden Era" will help to spark
such memories. We certainly would be better off if they do.
--
Stanley Crouch, New York
Daily News (Dec. 21, 2006)
Herb Jordan, a
Los Angeles-based composer and scholar, compiled the lyrics penned by
some of
Motown's legendary songwriters in his new book, Motown in Love:
Lyrics From the Golden
Era…reading the lyrics on a blank
page without the propulsive beats that had me dancing in
the streets as a kid, I realized the songs were poetry, with verses and
phrases that
drew me to the music and kept me there…
--
Annette John-Hall, The Philadelphia Inquirer (Jan. 3, 2007)
The lyrics of many of Motown's best-loved love songs are collected in a new book called… Motown in Love. The book argues that Motown was a step in the evolution of the American popular song, a tradition reaching back to songwriters like Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and Cole Porter…The lyrics of Motown are more than just words to feel-good songs for the Big Chill generation…Forty years after they first rolled off the assembly line, the love songs of Motown sound fresh and still run reliably, with lyrics that balance literary elegance and a hip, street vernacular…By this measure alone, it's clear that Motown has written its own chapter in the Great American Songbook.
-- Ashley Kahn, National Public Radio’s Morning Edition (Jan. 4, 2007)
"Dreamgirls" … is stirring memories of the glory days of Motown. You know the melodies, the bass lines, the vocal harmonies. But have you thought about the words to those classics? In "Motown in Love: Lyrics From the Golden Era"…, editor Herb Jordan celebrates "some of the most inspirational love songs ever written." The art form was created… from the unlikely juxtaposition of Detroit, "this city of steel and sweat," and the naked vulnerability of songs like "The Tracks of My Tears"…
-- Kristi Turnquist, The Oregonian (Jan. 7, 2007)
...the most provocative of the recent attempts to put Motown under the microscope is Motown in Love: Lyrics from the Golden Era... which includes a…trenchant introduction from its editor Herb Jordan. It’s trenchant for the ways it asks us to think about the words – and where they came from…These…songs we fall in love with settle down so deeply in our consciousness that we can take them for granted. But here on the pages we can move slowly through the turns of phrase and imagery that made the Motown era: the rhymes and alliterations, the crying clowns, the captured hunters, the shadows and lights of love…those were the words of African-Americans writing in the language of a sophisticated pop music…Jordan places Motown…as a successor to the great American songbook…Motown elevated black romance…Berry Gordy created a canvas where writers, musicians and performers projected images of black romance in song…And the magic is surely in the words as it is in the music.
--W.
Kim Heron, Metro Times Detroit (Jan. 10, 2007)
Motown In Love: Lyrics from the Golden Era…lets the language of great songwriters speak for itself… Motown’s romantic tunes were…often epic testimonies, compelling statements of fidelity, loyalty and devotion, and sometimes harbingers of social and political changes… Jordan’s introduction provides perspective on Motown’s importance as the voice of both a city (Detroit) and a generation during the ‘60s…These are beloved anthems…
-- Ron Wynn, The City Paper, Nashville, TN (Jan. 26, 2007)
Reading the words stripped of their melodic hooks and boogie down beats brings a revelatory appreciation for the conscientious, moralistic messages that were shared within such divine song craft. Simply put, this book will give everyone from music scholars to layman fans a heightened level of respect for the genius behind some of the greatest pop love songs - from harmony to heartbreak - of all-time.
-- A. Scott Galloway, Urban Network Magazine (January, 2007)
Editor Herb Jordan doesn’t miss anything…These lyrics show there was a time when honesty about love and loss, jealousy, fear and joy were openly and fearlessly spoken… Jordan, in perhaps one of the most insightful introductions to such a book, takes us back to where we wanted to be: to a time when first love moved us, when the heartbreak of losing someone made us cry. He takes the reader back to a time when the joy of life was tangible.
-- John Davis, The Decatur Daily, Decatur, AL (February 11, 2007)
