Remembering the unique stylings of MoWest
When one thinks of Motown, the songs of the Jackson 5 or Marvin Gaye might spring to mind, but music history has pretty much forgotten the unique experiments of Motown’s pioneering West Coast studio MoWest.
In its short existence from 1971 to 1973, the studio scored a Top 10 hit with a version of “What the World Needs Now,” a compilation of sound bytes arranged over the Burt Bacharach tune and discovered the LA group, Odyssey, as well as hosted artists like a much-changed Franki Valli and the Four Seasons, the music of Stevie Wonder’s partner Syreeta Wright and Asian-American artist, Suzee Ikeda.
For the last forty years, it would have taken a devoted scavenger to sort through endless bins of dusty records to find any of the studio’s albums, but the new anthology, Our Lives Are Shaped By What We Love: Motown's MoWest Story 1971-1973, provides fans the chance to relive this eclectic period of American music.
Full story at NPR. Video via YouTube.
