motown man
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Summer's here and the time is right for dancing in the street.TRANSCRIPT
Ain’t Too Proud to Beg
‘I know you wanna leave me,But I refuse to let you go.
If I have to beg and plead for your sympathy,I don’t mind because you mean that much to me.’
“Join me in prayer as we come to the
end this Sunday’s program, won’t you folks?”
Reverend Jim would be drenched in sweat
by the end of his twenty-six minutes. Shirt
collar yanked open, tie loosened during an
especially molten bit from--almost always--the
Book of Revelation, his spittle flew against the
slanted glass wall separating the studio from
my post at the board.
Reverend Jim always tried to capture my
gaze and preach directly to me.
Every Sunday. A long twenty minutes of a
young guy’s life. He seemed to feel that I was
included as part of the half-hour buy for a four
month schedule, half an hour on Sundays. At
seven a.m. Paid in cash. Upfront.
“Kneel along with me by your radio set,
won’t you?”
He remained standing, one hand caressing
the microphone stand, the other armed with a
well-worn tambourine. “If you’re in your
automobile, why not pull to the roadside and
pray along with us?”
“Lord Jesus, Lamb of God, relieve us of our
afflictions, cleanse us of our sins as we face a
new week in which to follow your word. And
help us, too, won’t you?”.
He began softly shaking the tambourine.
“To bring succor to God’s children? A few of
your hand-earned dollars propel our mission to
serve the Lord.”
“Many people say Satan works every day.”
He gasped and rattled the wooden ring with
jangles a--bang!--against his hip.
“Even Sundays.”
“Here’s a plea from Margaret in Mount
Clemens. Her husband needs the Lord’s
help” . . . to walk or talk again or not get the
cancer and be polio free and beat a case of TB
and diseases of the eye.
I soon tired of the Rev’s thunder every
week and worked out a schedule to more enjoy
my Sundays.
“Be sure to listen to Reverend Jim
every Sunday, here on on WPON, 1460 on your
AM dial, from the Riker Buiding in downtown
Pontiac.”
Station ID duties duly performed, I’d dash
down the gray-veined marble stairs, hands
sliding along the bronze handrail.
Flying from our top floor offices and studios
to the lobby and across the street to the donut
shop for six assorted and a large black.
Back at the station offices, I’d monitor
Reverend Jim’s show and savor my breakfast
at the reception desk deep into the six pages
of funnies in the Sunday Detroit Free Press.
Finishing my snack, I’d wave so-long to the
Reverend for a week, do the on-the-hour
station I.D. and switch to a remote broadcasts
from the many thunder and hell-fire churches
in the Detroit Metropolitan area. Each ran a full
hour and so gave me time to repair to the
men’s room to enjoy a private stall in which to
do my business and enjoy a Salem.
“This is WPON,” I’d intone in my best
baritone. This was the part I liked the best;
hearing my own voice on the air.
“1460 a.m., Pontiac, Michigan. The time is
seven o’clock. And, now, the news.”
Newsman Dave stood about five feet, two
and looked to weigh about a hundred pounds.
He had his own style in his oversize Oxford
button downs and his straw colored hair.
Good hair. Almost over his ears, the bangs
tossed casually across his furrowed forehead in
a nod to the times. Contrasted with a deep
back, thick-lensed pair of spectacles.
“Emergency news just in.” He looked more
serious than I thought possible of him.
Newsman Dave had a remarkably deep and
sonorous voice, keeping his timbre adjusted
perfectly by smoking Pall Malls everywhere, all
the time; especially during his news
broadcasts.
“Detroit Police warn there is a continuing
civil disturbance at Twelfth Street near
Clairmount Avenue and advise drivers to avoid
the area. Reports of street disruptions,
nearing riot levels, are crossing our desk in
great numbers.“
The news came from a short pile of tear-
offs from the UPI teletype.
This cacophonous machine, housed in its
own glassed-in closet to muffle the non-stop
keystroke clattering, delivered the newest
news from Bureaus and reporters around the
world; calling for our special attention to
important stories with a ringing red bell.
Newsman Dave would assemble a stack of
tear-offs to read on air, then turn to the next
report as he dropped the previous page silently
to the carpeted floor.
The last cigarette butt would be silently
extinguished in a puddle of water in his
ashtray. His voice lost a certain conviction as
he wrapped up the newscast with a human
interest item. Ownership liked a happy ending
to the news. A kitten saved from a well,
something along those lines.
Dave did all of the above while writing a
note in large letters and holding it up against
the studio glass so that I could read: ‘Do
Emergency News Teaser. NOW!’
I grabbed the Operations Manual from the
shelve over the board and found the approved
announcement, checked that the board mic
was on, quickly turning the volume so that the
needle in the meter stood straight up, just
bordering the red zone, “Please stay tuned,” I
solemnly announced, “for more breaking
news.”
Black Day in July
‘Black day in JulyBlack day in July
In the streets of Motor City is a deadly silent soundAnd the body of a dead youth lies stretched upon the ground
Upon the filthy pavementNo reason can be found.’
Until we signed off at midnight, I’d dial
dials, flip switches, check remotely on our
antenna and do my best to understand what
was wrong in my immediate world.
I would have had a better understanding if
I had found time between my donuts and
coffee and bathroom runs and comic reading
and Salem smoking to have listened to the
day’s many sermons by many pastors pleading
with their people and the police to stop the
looting and the burning and the shooting and
the deaths. All on the air, straight from WPON.
From right here in the Riker Building, about
twenty two miles from the epicenter of the
rioting, just about fifteen minutes down a very
wide and flat Detroit Expressway.
"Today we stand amidst the ashes of our hopes." -- Detroit Mayor Jerome
Cavanaugh, July 1967
In the early morning hours of that
Sunday, July 23, 1967, the Tenth Precinct
“cleanup squad” consisting of a Sergeant and
three patrolmen was cruising along Twelfth
Street. The cleanup squad was the precinct
equivalent of the headquarters vice squad,
housed in the Main Station in the more
prestigious “downtown.” The vice and cleanup
squads were directed to combat, prostitution,
illegal liquor and gambling activities, and to
raid and close after-hours, unlicensed “blind
pigs.” Officers on the detail were expected to
close down a certain number of blind pigs
every month. They knew that if they didn’t,
they would be returned to a regular beat.
Violators who were arrested were fined one
hundred dollars, and the next week would be
back in business. It was simply part of the
dues of living the life.
That Saturday had been a real Michigan
Summer. It started out warm, quickly became
jungle-humid, and finally thick with smog in
the Detroit night air. Clouds of mosquitoes
attended to any parts of your body not yet
miserable.
By midnight, as usual, Twelfth Street was
swarming with miniskirted prostitutes jive-
talking with dope pushers, loan sharks
attending to their accounts and felons with
pockets of cash looking for a private place to
shoot some craps, all joining in the sweltering,
sauntering parade.
At the corner of Twelfth Street and
Clairmount stood an old commercial building
housing the Economy Printing Company on the
first floor, and above it the United Civic League
for Community Action.
The police had known the United Civic
League premises to be a front for a blind pig
ever since it had opened a year and a half
before. The Tenth Precinct cleanup squad
raided it the first time in February, 1966. Their
later, repeated attempts to bust the place had
failed. The rival vice squad, however, up-
staged them with a successful raid, on June 3,
1967, less then two months previously.
At 3:34 A.M. on Sunday, the 23rd, the
clean-up squad observed that vigilance at the
blind pig had become less vigilant and a
plainclothesman was able to walk in behind
three women.
Ten minutes after the undercover man had
gone inside—time enough to have bought a
drink—the Sergeant radioed for a Tenth
Precinct cruiser. Two police cars responded.
The Sergeant then ordered the door of the
blind pig smashed open with a sledgehammer.
Once inside, the police discovered the
place was being used to hold a party for
servicemen, two of whom had recently
returned from Vietnam. The Sergeant had
expected to find a score of people at most, but
instead he discovered eighty-two. Yet, he
decided to arrest everyone and called for a
paddy wagon to take them all to the station.
Over an hour and four paddy wagon
trips were eventually required to remove
everyone. It didn’t go unnoticed. In the balmy
Sunday early hours, there was still an
observant audience on the stoops, in the
streets. Folks came out from all-night cafes
and restaurants. They stared from upper floor
apartment windows. Others came out from
their apartments to the street. About two
hundred spectators joined together. They were
observing the newest police action on their
street, a common occurrence and one that
didn’t provoke hostility on the crowd’s part.
Usually.
As people were herded into the paddy
wagon, many were pushed by the police. A
rumor spread that the cops had manhandled a
woman. As the last police car left the scene at
five o’clock Sunday morning, an empty bottle
smashed against its rear window. Rocks were
thrown. In a few minutes the police returned to
the area. A lieutenant was struck by a brick.
It was the beginning of the forever
destruction of Detroit. In the remaining months
of 1967, 68,000 people moved from the city. In
1968, the figure was 80,000, in ’69, 46,000
people ‘out-migrated’. The city still shrinks
today.
By six thirty that morning, the Tactical
Mobile Unit, the first formed in the country for
just such an emergency, mobilized its eighty
men. The night shift was held over, and the
day shift for all of the West Side precincts was
called to duty an hour and a half early. Looting
and fires spread through the Northwest side of
Detroit, then crossed over to the East Side.
Within 48 hours, the National Guard was
mobilized, to be followed by the 82nd airborne
on the riot’s fourth day. As police and military
troops sought to regain control of the city,
violence escalated.
At the conclusion of 5 days of rioting, 43
people lay dead, 1189 injured and over 7000
people had been arrested. The Detroit riot
ignited similar problems elsewhere. National
Guardsmen or state police were deployed in
four other Michigan cities: Flint, Saginaw,
Grand Rapids and Pontiac.
The July Sunday morning that began for
me with Reverend Jim’s preaching would hence
be known as The Day of the Blind Pig.
At a black power rally in Detroit just weeks
before the Riot, H. Rap Brown forecast the
course of future events, stating that if
“Motown” didn’t come around, “we are going to
burn you down”.
The Ugly Duckling
Radio spoke to me since I was a small
boy and my Mother would tune in a bedroom
set at night for my brother and me to doze off
to. To me, radio was a world apart. Born with
a speech impediment, the art of enchanting
listeners with the tones of your voice seemed
pure hypnotism to me. And I was all for such
endeavors in illusion.
My mother set me up for my first job in
radio. She had five kids, two jobs and no
support. She steered me to the job. You have
to look out for your own. And I needed some
attention. A husky kid with a flat-top and
baggy pants to compliment my never-ending
acne and constantly frustrating speech
impediment, I worked after school at a
‘Retirement Center’ where any friendly old
client of the day before would often be laid out
in a sack on a gurney when I reported to work.
Almost one died every day and I had to
help roll them out. I was coming home
depressed. Mom thought a High School guy
needed something with more panache and
promise and fun. My nightly reports of the
death/s of the day were driving everyone in my
family nuts. She also told me I needed a
girlfriend. My Mom.
Looking back, though, I had also been
writing a great deal of depressed and
depressing poetry during that period. Leaving
my Poe inspired ditties here and there
throughout the house, further creeping my
siblings out.
Fifteen is a tough time for a young guy. At
that age, we most need a Dad to go to. Many
of us are denied that and can’t help but look
elsewhere. You are becoming a man, for God’s
sake, you can’t ask Mom everything. Plus, you
could really use some encouragement that you
were okay, from a Dad’s voice.
Mom was a close social friend of the owner
of the station. I had met him twice at parties
my mother held at our house. He wore his hair
in a razor cut, an always tan (impossible in
Michigan), Country Club Republican in a
snappy blazer and white slacks and shiny,
shiny shoes.
About these parties, I’d like to explain. Five
kids are five gotta-be-fed kids. We’re talking
groceries. We were resourceful and my older
brother and I worked always after school. Still,
we’d go broke occasionally and things could
get depressing around our house. These were
the times at which my mother would invariably
decide to throw a party.
And her whole fun crowd would come.
Once divorced and free to be herself, Mom was
a magnet for new friends and interested men.
She was also one original progressive
Liberal, and so the circle of people open to her
friendship was very wide. This means she had
friends who were Black and Jewish and
creative and interesting and all-in-all one very
witty group of people.
Including the owner of WPON. The guy
probably never had a chance. He explained
the requirement of an FCC license for even the
lowliest radio station job and I listened.
I wrote a letter to the F.C.C. and received
the necessary forms and applications and test
dates in the Detroit Federal Building. I sent
away for the study guide. I took the test and
got the license. And called Mister Owner for an
interview.
Closely inspecting my freshly printed,
official FCC license, he smiled.
“Well,” he said, “it looks like we have to
find you a job here.”
To this day I’m not entirely sure the license
requirement wasn’t meant as a kind brush-off.
I was the only fifteen and a half year old on
the payroll. This is the job where I also fell in
love with the concept of a regular paycheck.
Every two weeks. Amazing.
I was put to work as a Boardman Third
Class; in charge of technical tasks as such as
reading the antenna power levels and actually
turning the station ‘on’ every Sunday morning
at five a.m. for the first of many religious
broadcasts.
Things were starting to work out well
for me. The Chief Engineer was a nice old guy
who would cover my mistakes while showing
me the right way to do things. Dave The
Newsman and I got along as well as anybody
got along with him. There was the Afternoon
Jock, though. In between playing ‘Wichita
Lineman’ and ‘Eleanor Rigby by the Montavani
Strings’, the jerk would point out that I didn’t
have much of a future in the industry due to
my ‘problem with speaking’. It drove me mad.
I was fine reading any lines or book put
before me, but called upon to extemporize I
came across as a stuttering idiot. It was also a
problem with girls.
It was surprising when I was called from
home on an August afternoon to come meet
with The Owner at the station. He was up from
Florida for the day.
“I’m going to need to change your
schedule, Rick.” You could see all of downtown
Pontiac from his office.
“Um. I hope I’m not disappointing you, sir.”
“How could you be disappointing me,
Rick?”
“Well, Reverend Jim doesn’t seem to like it
at times when I’m not paying close attention
during his preaching.”
“Hell, I’m just amazed you can stand to be
in the same building with him. And for two-fifty
an hour.” He shot me a brilliant white smile as
I smiled back, recalling my many escapes for
donuts and smokes during the Reverend’s
shows.
“No, I’m going to need you at nights,
Monday through Friday, six to sign-off.”
”Okay,” I said. The time slot was filled with
our Sunset Serenade featuring ‘Jackie
Gleason’s Music For Lovers’ or an occasional
uptempo thing like the soundtrack to ‘Sound of
Music’, perfect for our older audience to nod off
to. Those who were still with us. At six p.m.,
our signal dropped from 1000 watts to 750.
There were virtually no commercials,
simply a ton of pre-recorded Public Service
Announcements. This was through no sense of
altruism but simply a reflection of the fact that
seven to midnight on an A.M. station firing 750
watts is utterly worthless for any advertiser.
Still, it meant no more Reverends or
Pastors or Ministers or Healers every Sunday at
ungodly hours.
“May I ask why the change?” I was hoping
it was some sort of promotion. Director of the
P.S.A. Program, perhaps?
“You ever hear of the Ugly Duckling?”
“You mean the folktale?” I was hoping he
wasn’t about deliver some sort of confidence
building talk to me.
“That’s funny,” he truly laughed. “I guess
he is a sort of folktale.”
Larry Dixon, the Ugly Duckling of
Detroit radio, was coming to do a weeknight
show on WPON. And he needed a Boardman to
spin the records, run the spots on time, run
out to his car for a package or fetch some
great BBQ from places in parts of town I’d
never seen before.
Pontiac had always been a divided town. If
you stood outside Central High at final bell,
you would see all the colored kids go in one
direction and all the white kids walk in the
opposite. Pontiac was home to GM Truck’s
offices, plants and suppliers. The industry was
a well-paying magnet to Southern poor white
and colored people. Each group gravitated to
its special part of town, keeping the racial
ethics from Mississippi and Alabama and all
points in the backward South. Like it was
natural.
WPON was about to have a divided
character as well.
“We have a chance to make a difference
here, Rick.”
“We do?”
“That riot last month has torn this town
apart. I’m going to air Larry Dixon. He has a
loyal listenership, attracts solid sponsors by I
don’t know what means and has some
connection with someone that gets him all this
great, what R&B? Soul? It used to be called
Race Music. Can you imagine?”
“The Motown Sound,” I tried.
“That may become what its called.” I liked
this man. “Anyway, our measly 750 needs a
following, because it sure isn’t generating a
buck the way we’re going.”
“Makes sense.” This was my first ever
executive meeting and I was basking in the
moment.
“And you’ll be surprised, Larry Dixon is
very popular with both Caucasian and Afro-
American kids. It’s dance music.”
I loved working for Larry Dixon from
Night One. He was the first adult I ever met
who was truly ‘his own man’.
Proudly, I let people know that I was the
Boardman for The Larry Dixon Show. ‘The
Ugly Duckling’ himself. Mister Soul to any soul
brother anywhere. The real deal, pomaded,
scented, dressed in suits of fabulous designs,
arriving oddly early or late almost every night,
smiling like a prize-fighter; he arrived.
And the phones lit up. Anyone who loved
Motown Music and beyond tuned in, every
night, for the full five hours. The requests
would flood in, keeping me on the telephone
between cuing up records, running spots and
talking with Larry.
The Ugly Ducking would play as many
requests that got through. He had some neat
tricks. He would gang up a list of girls names
phoned in by their boyfriends.
“Mary, sweet lady, and Yvonne, you know
who I’m talking for. And this is also for you
Tammy and Belinda. Listen close now.”
He’d nod and I would spin ‘Reach Out I’ll
Be There’ and you could sense some young
hearts melting.
Other times, he’d stand and do a smooth
soul dance performed mostly with his hands
and expressive eyes.
Or turn on his mic during ‘My Girl’ and talk-
sing the lyrics along with The Temptations;
‘I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day
When it’s cold outside I’ve got the month of
May.
I’d guess you’d say
What can make me feel this way?
My girl (my girl, my girl)
Talkin’ ‘bout my girl (my girl).
Hey. hey, hey.
Hey, hey, hey.
Oooh.
The Ugly Duckling specially reserved the
last hour of his show for requests from ‘the
ladies’ only. By ‘requests’ I don’t mean Larry
let listeners select the song to be played. It
meant he’d mention their first name in front of
a song he selected. When it became known at
my High School that I was ‘Ricardo, my right
hand man here, Ducklings’, I became rather
popular with the please play my request crowd
of girls. They really liked ‘You Cheated’, I
recall.
Where’s he get this stuff, I was asked by
others at the station. Larry often ‘broke’ new
records that went immediately to the Top Ten.
Hi secret was simply that he searched out
local talent and had an uncanny ear. Period.
And he shared it with me over two and a
half years. And told me to buy a certain sort of
face scrub that had always worked for him.
And taught me that clothes can make the man,
as long as you don’t talk too much.
And take your time talking with a girl.
Take a breath. Smiling is always good. The
whole reason to chase them is because it’s fun.
Sooo . . . have fun.
And this place has no future for you, My
Main Man. It’s Vietnam or the Plant, and we
know both are dying propositions. Looks like
San Francisco is where it is all gonna be
happenin’, Rick.
Hey, run on down to Bagley-Wesson BBQ.
I’m about to do them an ad as a favor, so
they’ll have two platters for us.
And stay cool, Brother. Stay cool.
He’d slap my palm after I drove him home
some nights. Now, go straight home, promise?
And I did.
The Ugly Duckling and I made a horrible
duet, singing along off-mic to the Motown
greats in the privacy of the studio.
In spite of my race and later, and eager,
participation in the peace and pot culture of my
times, Motown music became the theme song
to my life.
“Ricardo, you are a very well-spoken fellow
now. But, man, you cannot sing. Just so you
know not to try and make a living that way if
you run off to San Fran.”
It was my turn to migrate. I was eighteen
and needed to make a life for myself,
somewhere peaceful, somewhere with promise,
somewhere far away from the Motor City.
And the time came and I left for California.
Motown Man
The Detroit News June 14, 2007
DJ Larry Dixon Dies
Larry Dixon, the smooth voice of Detroit’s R & B
powerhouse radio stations died after a long battle with
cancer on June 4th. He was 78 years old.
Many Detroit radio personalities had a part in Motown
Records’ success back when AM radio was king. But
Dixon was truly crucial.
In 1959, he tipped off United Artists in New York about a
hot local hit, Marv Johnson’s ‘Come To Me‘ put out on
Tamla Records by Berry Gordy, Jr. United Artists did more
then pick up ‘Come To Me’ for distribution, they bought
out Johnson’s contract altogether, allowing Gordy to come
home with $25,000 in his pocket to get his fledgling
Motown Records off the ground. The sultry-voiced Dixon
was known for dedicating the last hour of his show to
‘ladies only’ requests, with many steamed girlfriends
having ‘You Cheated’ played for their errant beaus. A
memorial concert, ‘Larry Dixon’s Last Dance’ is in the
works for sometime in August.
“So many entertainers want to come by and do the song my
Dad broke for them,” son Ed Dixon said. “Whenever they
were coming to town, they always wanted to know where
Larry Dixon’s record hop was, because that’s where the
black kids, the whites and the Latinos would all be. My
Dad was a bridge to bring everybody together.”
I stayed true to Larry’s original
suggestion and have called San Francisco
home for forty-one years. During that time,
I’ve experienced--voluntarily or not--the widest
possible range of music of this past half-
century.
Now, I’m sort of an aging hipster, nearly
sixty years of age with the required silver hair
and matching convertible. Be careful as to
who you make fun of when you are young, you
may very well become just that fellow
But still, sometimes, when the road is
smooth ahead, the air sweet with Spring, the
wind enveloping me, my arm on the door--
warm in the sun, the car’s engine a soft
humming, the dashboard radio will surprise me
with the music the Ugly Duckling introduced to
me. Like Martha and the Vandellas.
‘Callin’ out around the world
Are you ready for a brand new beat?
Summer’s here and the time is right
For dancin’ in the streets
There’ll be laughin’, singin’, and music swingin’
And dancin’ in the streets
Philadelphia, P.A. (Philadelphia P.A.)
Baltimore and DC now (Baltimore and DC now)
Yeah, don’t forget the Motor City (can’t forget
the Motor City)’
And for a quickly passing magical moment in my life, I’m Motown Man. Can’t forget the Motor City.
. . .
Cover design: ryanhumphries.com‘Ain’t Too Proud to Beg’; lyrics by Norman Whitfield; Edward Holland, Jr.‘My Girl’; lyrics by Smokey Robinson‘Dancing in the Street’; lyrics by Marvin Gaye; Ivy Jo Hunter; William Stevenson
Copyright, Motown Records‘Black Day in July’; lyrics by Gordon Lightfoot, Copyright Gordon Lightfoot