Motown RecordsMotown M 1047 (A), Baronial 1963

b/westward Pig Duke

(Written by Earl McDaniel)

Label scan kindly provided by Lars Nevertheless another in the ever-increasing throng of one-and-washed Motown artists who saw a lonely single release during 1963, the Morrocco (sic) Muzik (sic) Makers were a large R&B ensemble from Dayton, Ohio who had at least two separate recording sessions at Hitsville, resulting in vi finished songs, but two of which ever saw the calorie-free of twenty-four hour period. This particular record, a spectacular misfire, was cutting in August 1962 just so held in the can for a year, until its appointment-specific bailiwick matter made it commercially viable once again.

Commercially viable in theory, anyway. This didn't sell, and no more than was heard of the Morrocco Muzik Mak… you know what, I'thou fed up of these deliberate spelling mistakes. Ahem. "No more was heard of the ("Morocco Music Makers" – Ed.) at Motown always again." That'south improve.

This is a almost unusual record, in both concept and execution. Concept get-go, since that'southward the scrap that'due south easier to talk almost. This is the only popular record I tin can call up of which celebrates the finish of the summertime holidays and the get-go of a new school year, rather than vice versa.

The liner notes to The Complete Motown Singles: Volume 3 explicate this abroad equally part of Motown'southward social responsibleness programme, citing Motown'due south "commitment to the education program past recording 'don't drib out' radio promos; this 'positive-spin' single was conceived forth the same lines", only I'g not as sure. While stuff similar Brenda Holloway's 1966 Play It Cool (Stay In School), or the Supremes' 1965 Phil Spector collaboration Things Are Changing have an obvious "good crusade" foundation, this tape is more ambivalent – I can come across how a resoundingly positive "You've got to get dorsum to school, but don't be downwardly, there's lots to look forward to!" message might take worked, only that's not what Back To School Again is, not really.

Instead, the ("Music Makers" – Ed) just seem to be making a tape most going back to school, without whatever item message to it at all. It's not completely positive in its attempt to get the kids excited most going back to school, instead including both proficient and bad things indiscriminately and without comment (the main chorus begins with an exclamation that Summer'southward almost at an cease! in such a celebratory way, and and then completely lacking in any accompanying redeeming bulletin, that I can imagine most kids simply switching the record off right at that place and and then).

Seriously, if this was meant to encourage kids to feel better nigh going back to schoolhouse – run across the lyrics "A lot of new faces now, a lot of new friends", for example, or "You'll have so much fun / Watching a touchdown run / Or sitting at a basketball game / Or wearing your class ring", all admirable sentiments – then surely it would focus unremittingly on those positives, and not undo that good work by as well gleefully reminding the kids: "No more than playing in the park / No more staying out subsequently nighttime / You got to be home by eight / Nothing merely a weekend date"?

No, for me this isn't a 1000 social gesture; information technology's just an try to greenbacks in on a current effect, and a horribly misjudged endeavour at that. Motown may have been intrigued past the thought of putting out a record on a subject nobody else had touched on – only in that location's a reason nobody else had touched on it, and it'south the same reason the Beatles never released a song called "Retrieve To Castor Your Teeth". Teenage record buyers didn't relish messages reminding them of their lack of dominance and autonomy – run into the Marvelettes' similarly misjudged (but infinitely superior) My Daddy Knows Best – and this is so cack-handed it might likewise have been called "You lot've Got Chores To Practice, Young Lady".

Execution now. Nosotros've seen the lyrical content being badly mangled, but the scansion is as well horribly forced – Summer'south about at an end / Information technology's back to your pencil and pen", goes the main refrain, with a heavy caesura correct in the middle of the word "pencil" for adept measure. The tune is almost completely forgettable; trite and cheap-sounding stuff, the only chip that passes muster is the centre eight (the Watching a touchdown run fleck), and fifty-fifty that'south ruined by an uneven number of syllables in the final line. Information technology also sounds awful, bongos popping away all through the rails, off-key parps of trumpet, massive amounts of hiss that make information technology audio equally though information technology was recorded through a sock… Information technology's just not very expert, all told, and – as with many Motown singles recorded during the era using outside musicians rather than the immortal and always-improving Hitsville business firm band, the Funk Brothers – it just serves to throw the musical deficiencies of the external players into sharp relief.

Embarrassingly poor, this would take been beneath Motown's standards in 1959. By 1963, there's but no excuse for this sort of nonsense to accept ever found its way in front end of Quality Control at all. That it was passed for release beggars belief.

MOTOWN JUNKIES VERDICT

1/10

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