Is there a reliable list of songs recorded at Motown Hitsville Studio A?

July 1, 2018 6:29 PM

We are visiting Detroit in a few weeks and touring the Motown Museum (yay!) I want to make a playlist of stuff that was recorded on site in Studio A, but Google/Wikipeida fails me with a reliable list. Is there anything more definitive out there?

There MUST be music obsessives who have cataloged this stuff. I see that there was a 4-disc compilation put out in the early 90s, and I see that Wikipedia has a list of albums recorded there. But both seem to be unreliable: for example, The Jackson 5 recorded "I Want You Back," "I'll Be There," and most of their other hits in California.

Any help is appreciated. I love going to a place and feeling the history in the room.

posted by AgentRocket to Media & Arts (2 answers total)

Discogs is a good online resource for this kind of information. It tends to rely on what is present on the physical label of the release though, which might account for the paucity of the information as Motown didn't typically detail this.

You might have to read a longer history of Motown to confirm this, but I would assume that unless otherwise stated, everything they released from the establishment of the studio to the move out to LA (1959–1971) was recorded there. In any case, plenty of killer records.
posted by einekleine at 11:55 PM on July 1, 2018

I would assume that unless otherwise stated, everything they released from the establishment of the studio to the move out to LA (1959–1971) was recorded there.

Seconding this, with some additional details:

It's a little unclear, but in 1966 (Motown Timeline from the museum's website) or 1967 (Wikipedia) Berry Gordy bought another Detroit record label, and began using their recording studio as "Studio B". So everything before '66/'67 has to be Studio A, because that was all there was.

Then, check out this Sound On Sound article about recording Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On?" Couple of relevant excerpts:

"The rhythm tracks and overdubs for those songs were done at Studio A on West Grand Boulevard,” Sands explains. "Studio B, originally known as Golden World and located at 3246 West Davison, was mostly used for strings, horns, and lead and background vocals. The Funk Brothers would moonlight there before Berry bought the place, and after he did so it still had the original Neumann solid-state console and a Scully eight‑track machine.”

Meanwhile, the Studio A live area, known as 'The Snake Pit', had chief engineer Mike McLean's home-built, five‑channel line amplifier, into which a musician could plug a guitar or bass. This went to a balanced patchbay and from there into the tape machine which, in 1968, was upgraded from an Ampex‑based, one‑inch eight‑track built by McLean to a two‑inch Ampex MM1000 16‑track.


Not that Ken Sands recorded all of the instruments for What's Going On, or even for the title track. Indeed, during the label's halcyon years, it was standard Motown procedure for a rhythm track to be handled by several different staff engineers.

"Everything was done piecemeal,” Sands explains. "One engineer might record just the basic piano, bass and drums, maybe a guitar too, and then other engineers would overdub the rest of the instruments: conga, tambourine, bongos, another guitar, Wurlitzer piano, Rhodes piano, whatever, followed later on by the lead vocals and background vocals. Some of us would also do horn sessions or string sessions with the Detroit Symphony and [trumpet player] Johnny Trudell, which I enjoyed a lot. It wasn't about specialisation. Certain producers favoured certain engineers, but the work was distributed between everybody.”

IOW, clearly Berry was using modern recording technology (and a certain "music factory" approach) to use both studios simultaneously and as needed and available to create the records. Which probably at least partially explains why you're having trouble tracking down info - it seems a safe bet that most if not all records done after he purchased "Studio B" were worked on in both studios.

Finally, there's this bit from an article on Motown's move from Detroit to LA:

in fact Motown’s Detroit operations continued for a while after the declaration that they were ending. Marvin Gaye (one of the final ‘60s Motown stars to make the move to L.A.) recorded his hit “Trouble Man” at Studio A in September [1972], and the legendary “Snakepit” stayed open for more than a year after that: the final Motown session in 2648 West Grand’s log books is instrumental tracks for Art & Honey’s unissued “Always Together” and “What Have I Done,” on August 30, 1973, featuring several of the Funk Brothers. Studio B, the former Golden World Records space that Gordy had bought in 1968, was open even longer – Motown artists were still recording there as late as September 1974.

In summary:

1959-1966 - all Studio A
1966-1971 - probably at least partially Studio A
1971-1973 - possibly at least partially Studio A unless otherwise noted.
posted by soundguy99 at 10:01 AM on July 7, 2018