Town Hall’s Motown celebration was introduced by WBLS’s Lenny Green whose innate enthusiasm about and commitment to music carried into the theater on flannel baritone. Kevin Morris, Nathina Inez and Natalie McDuffe began the long (long), lively show with “Secondhand Emotions” popularized by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. Step, tap, step, tap, side to side the three vocalists step and sing. Sax players dance from the knees up. “Back in My Arms Again” and “You Can’t Hurry Love” (The Supremes) follow. Our audience spontaneously claps time. This is, to many, the soundtrack of their lives. Turning point memories rise like geysers.
“Tonight I’m gonna take you back…At 19, The Soulsters recruited my father,” his daughter Carla tells us. The artist’s second attempt at a hit, “You Send Me,” went gold. Success came young. Carla Cooke is a demonstrative performer who channels what she calls Sam’s “yodel” and utilizes melisma (a group of notes sung to one syllable of text). She throws herself into material with oomph. “Cupid, draw back your bow/And let your arrow go/Straight to my lover’s heart for me, for me…” the artist sings, aqua sequins shimmering.
Garfield Fleming, sporting a silver and white marching band jacket and white glitter footwear, opens with “Beauty is Only Skin Deep” (The Temptations). Lean and nimble, he moves all knees and shoulders; bounces, struts and snaps his fingers. Alas, sound balance is off and despite evangelical commitment, Fleming is mostly drowned out. During “My Girl” (The Temptations), the vocalist holds his microphone out to the audience for “hey, hey, hey!” and gets it in spades. A sax solo wails, its purveyor with scrunched eyes and puffed cheeks, swinging his instrument.
Our three original singers take over with tracks made famous by Smokey Robinson, The Temptations, The Supremes, The Four Tops, Martha and the Vandellas. The percussionist never stops stepping, bouncing, and grinning. Two red tambourines drive rhythm. Did you know The Supremes and The Temptations collaborated on an album: “A Place in the Sun”? “I’m gonna make you love me/Yes I will/Yes I will…” Mary Wells’ “My Guy” makes one want to parrot the phrase with back-up.
Sleek-suited Brian Owens conjures Marvin Gaye with “What’s Goin’ On?” His flannel tenor slip slides with perfect attitude. “I know flowers go from rain/ But how can love grow from pain (Pain, pain, pain, pain)/ Ain’t that peculiar (Ain’t that peculiar).” He sings leaning forward from the waist, locking eyes with front rows. Owens perambulates. Uh huh, huh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We join in the chorus of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” Many are persuaded to stand. A duet of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” by Tammy Terrell and Marvin Gaye is offered with Nathina. The lead guitar wears an appreciative, nostalgic expression.
I couldn’t possibly list all the songs. They kept on coming for 2 ¼ hours (perhaps a bit too much of a good thing) with a half hour intermission. The songs are great fun – accessible, emotional, rhythmic. An era of more innocent lyrics. Sound balance was restored in Act II. Every vocalist was spot on, prime representation of Motown. The tight, terrific band was having such a good time their infectious buoyancy carried.
Caveats: Rotating searchlights were painful. Constant video, though it featured each album cover and group might have stopped there – still – and been illuminating. Instead, there was film of everything from the streets of New York to Hollywood musicals to a sunburst pattern to dancing teenagers (all white) to what was happening onstage. It was hugely distracting/intrusive.
Have confidence in your talent!
Celebrating the Music of Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye
Carla Cooke – daughter of the legendary Sam Cooke
Brian Owens performing the songs of Marvin Gaye
Garfield Fleming
Nathina Inez, Natalie McDuffe, Kevin Morris
That Motown Band
Town Hall
123 West 43rd Street
