Woodstock

[Joe Allonby]

Stax vs Motown (with Atlantic as some sort of massive middle ground)
is more interesting. The Beatles and Stones liked each other. Berry
Gordy tried to distance his artists from what he saw as the cruder
image of Memphis. He wanted to sell music by black artists to middle
class white kids. He didn't want the Southern black attitude
assiciated with acts like the Supremes or Marvin Gaye. He was
initially appalled by "What's Going On".  He thought that it would
scare white people.

Ironically, a lot of the Stax/Volt stuff was written or played by
Steve Cropper. Southern soul was much more integrated. At Antlantic,
Dusty Springfield went to Memphis to record with Aretha Franklin's
band. The relatively unimportant Rare Earth was the only white act on
Motown during this period. Odd since Gordy was the one most
deliberately going after white audiences.

On Sun, Aug 16, 2009 at 11:20 AM, Dave Monroe<against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 16, 2009 at 2:09 AM, John Bailey<sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 1. Beatles vs Stones - nothing to add, but I always thought the big
>> opposition was Beatles vs Elvis - you had to choose a side and stick
>> to it. Elvis was Americanism, Beatles were Internationalism....
>
> Rock vs. soul?  Stax vs. Motown?  Spector vs. Meek?  Et al. ...
>