In 1971, Marvin Gaye articulated what was on the minds of most people in America with his landmark single and album “What’s Going On.” The content of What’s Going On was that of a politically charged and deeply personal Motown album, and was notable for including elements of jazz and classical music instrumentation and...
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You are my pride and joy
And I just love you, little darlin’
Like a baby boy loves his toy
You’ve got kisses sweeter than honey
And I work seven days a week to give you all my money
And that’s why you are my pride and joy
And I’m tellin’ the world
-Marvin Gaye
During the 1960s, it common place to...
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Motown is both a style of music and a label and is now a metaphor for success and excellence. Motown set the standard for popular music, and developed a sound which others musicians and record companies sought to emulate. No other label is more identified with the sound it produced which gives credence to...
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It is indeed a rare and intriguing moment when an artist decides he or she is the instrument of history-making. ” In the closing year of the 1950s, such an artist, Miles Davis, conceived of and produce a masterpiece- Kind of Blue. A moment like this happens only occasionally: Martin Luther King, “I Have...
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Proclamation 8389 – African-American Music Appreciation Month, 2009
June 2, 2009 By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
The legacy of African-American composers, singers, songwriters, and musicians is an indelible piece of our Nation’s culture. Generations of African Americans have carried forward the musical traditions of their forebears, blending old styles with innovative...
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The freedom songs, lifted from the African American spirituals songs, helped to inspire and transform ordinary black people and their multiracial allies into a moral and social force, commonly known as the Civil Rights Movement. This movement, aided by the freedom songs, changed the structure and character of American society that may never be...
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The freedom songs, lifted from the African American spirituals songs, helped to inspire and transform ordinary black people and their multiracial allies into a moral and social force, commonly known as the Civil Rights Movement. This movement, aided by the freedom songs, changed the structure and character of American society that may never be...
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The Harlem Renaissance was truly a milestone and high point in African American history. Viewed as a flowering of music, literature, poetry and visual arts, the Renaissance period paralleled and reinforced the emergence of a new African personality, expressed in the “New Negro” anthology, edited by Alain Locke. The impetus for this new personality...
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As has been well documented, in the second decade of the twentieth century, a section of New York City called Harlem became the Mecca and magnet for the coming of age of African Americans. The synergistic and cross-pollination of literature, art and music, informed by a general aesthetic ethos, produced the foundation for America’s...
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What’s Going On is not only Marvin Gaye’s masterpiece; it was a ground breaking album for Motown and for music in general. Gaye had been affected by what he had seen and heard in Vietnam and wanted to take his sound in a new direction, using it to inform and motivate people to act....
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