The simplicity of Motown must've really done a number on generations of white pop and rock groups. Knocked by soul purists as commercial pablum, the hits of The Supremes, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Four Tops, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye and many, many more left a mark on young people that remained. Some artists flourished because they couldn't or wouldn't allow the Motor City influence to weigh them down. For example, would anyone even be aware of the role Motown played musically on English singer-songwriter Billy Bragg if not for directly name checking one of his idols in "Levi Stubbs Tears" or in the one off pastiche "Upfield" (a 1996 single that few even remember anymore)? Others haven't been so fortunate. Just as Beatles influence seems to inevitably result in lots of critically acclaimed yet surprisingly unsuccessful - not to mention boring - power pop and Dylan influence amounts to an endless stream of very basic folk rock, Motown influence seems to come down to copying its formula but not quite getting the magic.
Rare Earth were pioneers in the 'nondescript white band with a Motown fixation' game. They, like many others who followed them, no doubt made a decent living as a glorified hotel bar covers band. This was something they weren't terrible at. You'd be forgiven for dismissing them as one-hit wonders - or, more accurately, I'd like you to forgive me for jumping to this conclusion - but they had five Top 20 entries in both the United States and Canada. Clearly, they had something that worked, at least for a little while. White guys who did a reasonable job at aping the most commercial form of black music since the heyday of swing jazz? Let's print some money!
"Get Ready" had been written by Smokey Robinson as another possible hit for The Temptations, a vocal group who leader of The Miracles had been writing for. While The Supremes and Four Tops had been knocking off Top 10 hits with ease, The Temptations had been a little more up and down. "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" stalled at number eleven on Billboard's Hot 100 and somehow missed the Top 40 entirely up in Canada. Other singles failed to even do that well but they did hit gold with the effortlessly brilliant "My Girl". Still, it was their sole Top 10 hit of the Smokey era. "Get Ready" proved to be yet another fairly minor hit which would pave the way for the more commercially successful Norman Whitfield years.
I must say I'm not the biggest fan of The Temptations. While the other major Motown acts had qualities that made them stand apart — the powerhouse vocals of Levi Stubbs with the Four Tops, the silky smooth yet somehow melancholic Smokey Robinson, the gritty ladies man Marvin Gaye — there wasn't really anything truly distinctive about them. They had solid harmonies but that was something virtually every in the Motown family had going for them. Not helping matters is that The Temptations have been treated to some absolutely horrific cover versions, including Rick Astley's "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" and UB40's "The Way You Do the Things You Do". While being undermined by an interpretation isn't their fault, I think these covers only managed to expose how these weren't quite top tier songs to begin with.
That all said, I have nothing against the original "Get Ready". I'm not as crazy about Rare Earth's version from 1970 but it is merely serviceable. Is it a crime against pop justice that they had the huge hit with their faux-live recording when The Temptations only did modest numbers? I suppose so but there were loads of Motown hits for the public to attach themselves to in the mid-sixties. A white rock band's spirited but weak take on the Detroit sound? Not quite as commonplace, even if it wouldn't be long before half the bands out of Britain would be trying much the same thing. The novelty is probably its main selling point. Listen to those rough and tumble guitar parts! The disciplined Funk Brothers must've had a fit. Otherwise, there isn't much to recommend it besides giving you a greater appreciation for what The Temptations were able to get out of it.
The decline of Motown is difficult to track. It could be down to boss Berry Gordy's twin decisions to (a) move company headquarters to Los Angeles and (b) focus more on the motion picture industry. Nurturing young groups and singers from the Michigan area became less and less of a priority. Ironically, the members of Rare Earth were from Detroit making a white rock group one of the label's last home grown acts. While there's nothing inherently wrong with a black label signing a milquetoast rock group, it does smack of the sort of thing they'd do to capitulate to radio stations that wished to continue their own brand of segregation. Whites seldom did much creatively when they were too in the thrall of Motown but that didn't mean there wasn't truckloads of money to be made off of them.
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