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Reproduced from Mixmag, ???
MOTOWN by Pete Waterman
As told to Nick Jones
"I FIRST got into Motown in about 1960, when I used to listen to American Forces Network. I started hearing Miracles
records like 'Way Over There' and 'Shop Around' and it just fascinated me. I can't honestly say why, but it sounded different to
me. At that time we had a shop in Coventry that sold imports and I started to notice that the records I was buying were either
on Motown or Tamla. I started collecting other records on the labels and it just began to grow. Then when The Supremes
broke through in a really big way I kept seeing these three names pop up; Holland, Dozier and Holland. I kept seeing these
names referred to Berry Gordy and I decided to find out more about it.
Without Berry Gordy there wouldn't have been a Motown. He had a vision. He put a team around him and drove that team,
probably more successfully than anybody's ever driven a team before. It was one man's dream and everybody participated.
Motown to me means working class dance music. As a working class factory kid it was instantly identifiable with my style of
life. Later in '65-66 as a DJ, when I played colleges people said they hated Motown. It was referred to as Toytown, derided
by higher ground people in the 70s and 60s and now of course everybody is a Motown fan. I saw it very much as a female
factory worker type music, because it was uplifting, great messages in the songs.
It was an industry and industry pumps out product. It's with what skill and what quality that you're pumping out that makes you
successful. The skill is putting something on that plastic that makes it worthwhile doing. We copied them, that's no secret. They
were our role model, that's why we called ourselves Stock, Aitken and Waterman. We sat around for hours pushing the names
around to make sure it sounded as close to Holland, Dozier and Holland as it could.
They were the people's label and that's what we were, we made records for people, not for critics. I had every single Motown
record ever released up until about five years ago. Motown gave me the greatest entertainment and the greatest emotions of my
life. I fell in love and I fell out to Motown records. Still to me the greatest pop record ever made is 'I Heard It Through The
Grapevine'. That one song says everything about the relationship."
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