Motown’s Number Ones

HITTING THE GIDDY HEIGHTS OF THE HOT 100

A number of West Grand Blog readers have been in touch about chart action, such as the recent achievement by contemporary Motown recording artist Lil Baby. His My Turn album has become the company’s first release since 1994’s II by Boyz II Men to log five weeks atop the Billboard 200.

Over the past 60 years, only two other Motown albums have spent as long ruling the roost: Diana Ross & the Supremes’ Greatest Hits (five weeks in 1967) and Stevie Wonder’s Songs In The Key of Life (14 weeks in 1976-77).

One West Grand follower also mentioned the contents of a 1982 Motown sales catalogue which he acquired this summer. It included a countdown of Hitsville’s Number One singles on the Billboard Hot 100 from 1961-81. Now, that was a topic I was confident had been previously covered in WGB – but only, it seems, up to a point. The Chart-Toppers Club focused on Motown albums which reached the summit, while Motown’s All-Time Top 50 examined the singles with the best performance on the Billboard Hot 100. But in the latter analysis, the ranking was based as much on chart longevity as on peak position. Since some of the hits which stopped short of Number One spent longer on the Hot 100 than others which did reach the summit, that “all-time” inventory omitted a few roost-rulers. And so…

Here is a complete, chronological list of every Motown Records 45 which attained Number One on the Billboard pop charts when Berry Gordy owned and ran the business – that is, from 1959 to 1988. The date shown by each title is when the record stepped up (with the English dating methodology, by the way, which puts the month second), followed by the number of weeks at Number One. With 53 titles to cover, the list comes in two parts: the first below, the second to be found here.

In addition, there’s a comment from someone with first-hand involvement in each particular hit, whether singer, songwriter, arranger or producer. The sources of these are shown: mostly autobiographies, magazine articles or (ahem) The Billboard Book of Number One Rhythm & Blues Hits. Don’t wait a minute to get started, with…

1. THE MARVELETTES, “Please Mr. Postman” (Tamla 54046) 11/12/1961 (1)

“When Georgia [Dobbins] brought the song to us, we learned the words that she and [William] Garrett had written. But once we were back at Motown to audition the song, the producers and musicians there started to fool around with it. They increased the tempo, added a new beat and made it more up to date. Everyone wanted to add their mark to the song. We were just teens and too young to know that someone could take a song and add words. Someone at Motown added the line, ‘Deliver the letter, the sooner the better.’ We sang the song a capella, and they loved it. Motown gave us contracts to take home for our parents to sign.” – Katherine Anderson Schaffner, Wall Street Journal, 2018, by Marc Myers.

2. LITTLE STEVIE WONDER, “Fingertips – Pt. 2” (Tamla 54080) 10/8/1963 (3)

“It was through Dr. Bowles that I saw my first play in life. We were performing in Columbus, Ohio, and he took me to see West Side Story. It is through Dr. Bowles, I remember very clearly in 1963, and it was then that I had the success of the single, the record that he wrote, ‘Fingertips’ live version, that he came on to assist and be my road manager. It was in that year that I was able to do the things with him that helped to change my life.” – Stevie Wonder, Dr. Beans Bowles: ‘Fingertips,’ The Untold Story by Dennis Bowles, 2003.

3. MARY WELLS, “My Guy” (Motown 1056) 16/5/1964 (2)

“I can look at a lot of things from a woman’s point of view. I grew up with women after all, my mom, my two sisters, my nieces, and I’m a life observer. For ‘My Guy,’ I pictured Mary, a woman who was a star already, with a boyfriend who was a miner or a factory worker. Naturally she had lots of guys trying to lure her away, but she was devoted. It all comes out of that first ‘tear you away’ line. That sounds so good so then I go to all the other things you could connect with it. What tears? A piece of paper, an envelope, a stamp stuck to it. I go the route. But I try to stay with things that are everydayish, that’s important too, images that everyone can relate to.” – Smokey Robinson, Q, year unknown.

4. THE SUPREMES, “Where Did Our Love Go” (Motown 1060) 22/8/1964 (2)

“When the [Dick Clark] tour began, we were the opening act. The more popular and successful the group, the later on in the evening it appeared, so the name acts were the closers. As the summer wore on, ‘Where Did Our Love Go,’ which had been released in June while we were already travelling, started gaining popularity. At first we were so busy riding the bus and performing, we were unaware of what was happening with our record. But the audiences knew. They began to recognise us. They would scream and shout when we appeared on stage, and when we got to the wings, we’d scream to each other, ‘They know our song! They’re out there dancing to our song!’ ” – Diana Ross, Secrets Of A Sparrow, 1993.

5. THE SUPREMES, “Baby Love” (Motown 1066) 31/10/1964 (4)

“Usually, I can’t say who was on my mind when I wrote. But throughout this period, I knew. I felt so much for [Diana Ross], and it came pouring out. That’s when I wrote ‘Baby Love.’ That song captured everything I felt for her. It was the essence of why I loved her. It was just something that came to me. Songwriters are like movie people; they come up with an idea, they write it, they stick to it, that’s what happens. I was sitting at the piano, came up with a little melody and started singing ‘Baby love, oh baby love…” – Brian Holland, Come and Get These Memories with Dave Thompson, 2019.

6. THE SUPREMES, “Come See About Me” (Motown 1068) 19/12/1964 (2)

“Brian [Holland] and I would spend hours sitting side by side at the piano. When one of us got tired, the other would take over and keep banging away. As a songwriter and producer, I’d reached the top of my game, but I was feeling more anxious than I ever had. It felt like there weren’t enough hours in the day to crank out the hits we needed to provide. I would have trouble falling asleep at night worrying about how we would get everything done, and I’d wake up in the morning worried about getting back to Hitsville to keep cranking out ideas.” – Lamont Dozier, How Sweet It Is with Scott B. Bomar, 2019.

***‘The most gorgeous, magical love song’***

7. THE TEMPTATIONS, “My Girl” (Gordy 7038) 6/3/1965 (1)

“It was David [Ruffin]’s first lead on a single. We recorded our vocals over a basic track, so what we heard was basically bass, drums, and guitar. Smokey worked up those lush string parts with Paul Riser, a classically trained musician who wrote most of the orchestral music on Motown records. We listened in the studio as Smokey added the ‘sweetening,’ and by the time he was finished with the mix, it was the most gorgeous, magical love song I’d ever heard.” – Otis Williams, Temptations with Patricia Romanowski, 1988.

8. THE SUPREMES, “Stop! In The Name Of Love” (Motown 1074) 27/3/1965 (2)

“A lot came from my own experience: either I had lived it or my friends had. Or I went to places where teenagers hung out and eavesdropped and made notes from their conversations. When you write about the human condition, you don’t need to make anything up. Sometimes I broke up with a girl just to get that feeling, then I wrote the song, then made up with her and wrote about that, too. ‘Stop! In The Name Of Love’ came from a night in a motel; my girlfriend found out that I was cheating, came down with a bat, the girl escaped through the window, I let my girlfriend in, she said, ‘Why don’t you stop?’ I said, ‘In the name of love.’ She didn’t find it funny, but I heard the cash register ringing.” – Lamont Dozier, Record Collector, 2018, by Lois Wilson.

9. THE SUPREMES, “Back In My Arms Again” (Motown 1075) 12/6/1965 (1)

“This remains one of our most beloved hits, as Florence and I were actually named as characters in the lyrics. What was so cute and appealing about this song is that Diane, in her lead vocals, asks her closest girlfriends their opinion about the boyfriend troubles she has been experiencing. In the context of the song, she speaks about not trusting her girlfriends’ negative opinions of her boyfriend, because ‘Mary’ recently lost her own boyfriend and ‘Flo’ is dating a notorious ‘Romeo.’ We have Holland/Dozier/Holland to thank for this wonderfully fun song that turned Florence and I into bona fide rock ’n’ roll characters!” – Mary Wilson, Supreme Glamour with Mark Bego, 2019.

10. THE FOUR TOPS, “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)” (Motown 1076) 19/6/1965 (2)

“The first thing I remember about that was that it was one of the quickest sessions I had. I remember the night the tune was written. I was out with Lamont Dozier at a place called the 20 Grand, where the Temptations were performing. Lamont and I got pretty smashed and he started telling me about this tune he had in his head. So I took him home and he started banging out this tune on the piano. After that, we went into the studio and did the song in about two takes.” – Abdul “Duke” Fakir, Goldmine, 1981, by Jeff Tamarkin.

11. THE SUPREMES, “I Hear A Symphony” (Motown 1083) 20/11/1965 (2)

“Berry heard it, loved it and told Brian to see if I could finish the song for the next Supremes single, which he wanted to get out as quickly as possible. I wasn’t at the studio at all that day. I was at home writing, and then I went to bed around nine or ten o’clock. Suddenly the phone rang. It was Brian, telling me he’d cut this track called ‘I Hear A Symphony,’ and I had to have it finished the next day. ‘Are you serious?’ I asked, and he was. Apparently the Supremes were about to fly out for London, so he had one day in which to cut it. So I got up, put the track on – Brian had it couriered over to me – and I was up all night working on it, and into the next day as well.” – Eddie Holland, Come and Get These Memories with Dave Thompson, 2019.

12. THE SUPREMES, “You Can’t Hurry Love” (Motown 1097) 10/9/1966 (2)

***Duke, Obie, Levi, Lawrence: reaching a little further***

“About the time ‘Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever’ was stalling out at number 45 on the pop chart, we were in the studio with the Supremes recording ‘You Can’t Hurry Love.’ The song was rooted in the gospel music that Brian and I grew up with, but had a contemporary feel that continued the development of the Supremes’ sound. It was out within three weeks and had climbed to number one by September. The Supremes sang ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ on Ed Sullivan’s show that summer wearing matching sparkly sequined dresses. They exuded confidence and charisma, and it was clear that ‘the girls’ were all grown up.” – Lamont Dozier, How Sweet It Is with Scott B. Bomar, 2019.

13. THE FOUR TOPS “Reach Out I’ll Be There” (Motown 1098) 15/10/1966 (2)

“Levi [Stubbs] was uncomfortable at first. He said, ‘I’m a singer. I don’t talk or shout.’ But we worked on it for a couple of hours, recording it in pieces, talking part after talking part. The lyrics were ostensibly about a guy telling his girl he’ll be there for her in her darkest moments. To me, it felt like a chant, almost religious – a song of hope for the world. Eddie realised that when Levi hit the top of his vocal range, it sounded like someone hurting, so he made him sing right up there. Levi complained, but we knew he loved it. Every time they thought he was at the top, he would reach a little further until you could hear the tears in his voice.” – Abdul “Duke” Fakir, Guardian, 2014, by Dave Simpson.

14. THE SUPREMES, “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” (Motown 1101) 19/11/1966 (2)

“I was still seeing Vernelle at the time, but I was also seeing another girl who had recently become pregnant. I went to Vernelle to tell her, and she was so upset. She started crying, then sobbing heavily. ‘I can’t deal with this,’ she said. ‘You don’t really love me, you just keep me hangin’ on.’ And then she started screaming, ‘Go on, get out of my life, just get out of my life.’ I felt so badly about what I was putting her through, realising what I had done. I started thinking about what she was saying, but, at the same time, the songwriter in me couldn’t help but take a mental note, about how her words could be set to music.” – Eddie Holland, Come and Get These Memories with Dave Thompson, 2019.

15. THE SUPREMES, “Love Is Here And Now You’re Gone” (Motown 1103) 11/3/1967 (1)

“It was one of the few songs that was cut in California. That’s one of my favourites, because it sounds a little different than our other songs – possibly because of that California feel. It had harpsichords on it. The way it stops and the music sustains itself, and I wrote those little spoken words in there. To me it sounds different, with that big orchestra and the melody.” – Eddie Holland, Record Collector, 2009, by Ken Sharp.

***Supreme glamour: Cindy, Mary, Diana***

16. THE SUPREMES, “The Happening” (Motown 1107) 13/5/1967 (1)

“In this particular case, it was for the movie The Happening with Anthony Quinn and Faye Dunaway, and we wrote it because of the title. Frank DeVol, it was his music that had a lot to do with that. He had partial music already written, so we took that feeling that he had and added our own interpretation and added melodies and whatever we had to do to make it a pop song. That’s why you’ll find his name on the credits, because he was responsible for some of the music. But with a movie, sometimes you can be too close by doing the title, and you just write around the subject matter of the movie. You want to take this assignation and put it into the song lyric, and just try to adapt to the feeling of the overall movie.” – Lamont Dozier, Songfacts, 2018, by Carl Wiser.

17. DIANA ROSS & THE SUPREMES, “Love Child” (Motown 1135) 30/11/1968 (2)

“I was a writer on ‘Love Child.’ It was Pam Sawyer who came up with the concept of it. Then we built a story around it. Of course, the Andantes sing great on that record. I recall Frank Wilson was in the studio and the background voices were not gelling; he and Berry were in the control room. I came in kind of late and saw everyone was a little impatient and I came up with the part in my head, ‘Love child wait, wait, won’t you wait love, hold on just a little bit longer.’ They sang that in there and Frank had them do it and the ladies got it in two takes.” – songwriter R. Dean Taylor, Motown From The Background by the Andantes with Vickie Wright, 2007.

18. MARVIN GAYE, “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” (Tamla 54176) 14/12/1968 (7)

“I believed every word of the song. It was happening to me. The doubting, the friends whispering in my ear, the suspicions. I was surprised, I mean completely shocked, that the tune took off. I had no idea it would mean anything to anyone else, especially since Gladys [Knight] had done such a great job with it.” – Marvin Gaye, Divided Soul by David Ritz, 1985.

***Marvin Gaye: doubts, whispers, suspicions***

19. THE TEMPTATIONS, “I Can’t Get Next To You” (Gordy 7093) 18/10/1969 (2)

“One thing that most writers or producers don’t speak about, there’s a tremendous amount of adrenalin that starts to flow when you’re on a roll. And the magic starts to come out of the fingers, the ears, the eyes, the mouth. It’s worth more than money when you’re into that kind of thing, especially when you have good songs. It’s impossible not to recognise that the adrenalin is flowing. The Temptations have always been classified with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, those kind of acts, because they were able to walk through many trends, and ten years at a time, which is very unusual.” – songwriter/producer Norman Whitfield, The Story Of Motown, BBC Radio 1, 1984, with Stuart Grundy.

20. DIANA ROSS & THE SUPREMES, “Someday We’ll Be Together” (Motown 1156) 27/12/1969 (1)

“Diana wasn’t in the greatest of moods, and we weren’t getting the right feeling from her. I suggested to Mr. Gordy that I go in the other booth [in the studio] and just sing along with her, just a little soulful thing to kind of help. He said, ‘OK, great, go ahead.’ We started off, then he stopped the tape and said, ‘I’ve got to start over, I made a mistake.’ And unbeknownst to myself and Diana, he recorded everything I did, and said, ‘I’m gonna keep this, it’s a smash.’ And he was absolutely right.” – songwriter/producer Johnny Bristol, The Billboard Book Of Number One Rhythm & Blues Hits, 1993.

21. THE JACKSON 5, “I Want You Back” (Motown 1157) 31/1/1970 (1)

“We were particularly impressed with the ‘I Want You Back’ session then because that one song took more time (and tape) than all the other songs on the record combined. That’s the way Motown did things in those days because Berry insisted on perfection and attention to detail. I’ll never forget his persistence. This was his genius. Then and later, I observed every moment of the sessions where Berry was present and never forgot what I learned.” – Michael Jackson, Moonwalk, 1988.

22. THE JACKSON 5, “ABC” (Motown 1163) 25/4/1970 (2)

“At first, I didn’t like ‘ABC.’ I thought it was too ‘kiddieland,’ but when the Corporation brought in the first guitar, they got my attention. That’s when I thought, ‘Oh, wait a minute. You might have a great song here.’ Even today, my three-year-old twins love it and walk around the house singing it. I think ‘ABC’ will always be around because all the little kids love that song. It’s true, after ‘I Want You Back,’ they went back to the same drawing board to make a perfect song.” – Jackie Jackson, Legacy by The Jacksons with Fred Bronson, 2017.

***The Jackson 5: high on a hill, and on the Hot 100***

23. THE JACKSON 5, “The Love You Save” (Motown 1166) 27/6/1970 (2)

“There was a little play between Jermaine and Michael, we always tried to get that in there. We found out Tito had a commercial bass voice and we would put little trick things in with him. We had a little list of things, a checklist, that we followed. We recorded our own little version of it one night. I didn’t realise how raggedy it was, but it said what it was supposed to say, so that when some real pros got on it, they could play it right.” – songwriter/producer Freddie Perren, The Billboard Book Of Number One Rhythm & Blues Hits, 1993.

24. EDWIN STARR, “War” (Gordy 7101) 29/8/1970 (3)

“Norman [Whitfield] no more wanted to produce me than anybody else. It just so happened that there was a big demand for the song ‘War’ from the Temptations’ album [Psychedelic Shack] to be released as a single. Now Motown didn’t want to create waves by putting out such a controversial song on their top group at a time when the country was involved in war. They didn’t want them singing such an unpatriotic line as ‘War, what is it good for?’ but with me, they had nothing to lose. So I got to cut it with a new arrangement. There were no great expectations on that song. The record got to the top on its own merits.” – Edwin Starr, Soul Survivor, 1985, by Richard Pack.

25. DIANA ROSS, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” (Motown 1169) 19/9/1970 (3)

***‘The biggest thing that Diana ever did’***

“We cut the rhythm track in Detroit, and the strings and horns, which were a little too sophisticated for these players here [in Detroit] at that time, so we went to New York to do it, to get the best possible performance. Valerie put down a pilot vocal, she always put down pilot vocals for the artist. Probably at that time, it was the biggest thing Diana ever did. It was contemporary gospel, for sure, with a little touch of classical in there.” – arranger Paul Riser, The Billboard Book Of Number One Rhythm & Blues Hits, 1993.

26. THE JACKSON 5, “I’ll Be There” (Motown 1171) 17/10/1970 (5)

“Mr. Gordy liked the title and the track, but he didn’t like the song. Hal [Davis] came to my house at about 3:45 in the morning. He felt I could get the song done. I’m a singer myself, so when I heard the track, I first just kind of hummed the melody, then I thought about it. At four o’clock in the morning, there’s really not much distraction. One [version] was more or less a brotherhood kind of lyric, and the other was more guy-girl. But I kept the brotherhood aspect in both songs at the beginning.” – songwriter Willie Hutch, The Billboard Book Of Number One Rhythm & Blues Hits, 1993.

27. SMOKEY ROBINSON & THE MIRACLES, “The Tears Of A Clown” (Tamla 54199) 12/12/1970 (2)

“That song was such an amazing song, man. I can remember we were in the office on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit, and Stevie came in the office and he said, ‘Man, I got this track, and I don’t feel the lyrics to this track.’ And so he started to talk to us more, and so Smokey said, ‘OK, man, give the track to me, and I’ll do some lyrics for it.’ So that’s how the song started. And Smokey came up with ‘The Tears Of A Clown’ lyric, which was based on Pagliacci, you know, the clown that’s laughing on the outside but sad on the inside.” – Pete Moore of the Miracles, interviewed at the Heroes And Legends (HAL) Awards, Los Angeles, 2008.

Music notes: thanks to Paul Grein and Bill Staiger, among others, for inspiring this week’s WGB and the accompanying playlist. Also, if you’re interested in hearing Lil Baby’s chart-topping Motown album on Quality Control – nifty name for a record label, eh? – this link should do the trick.