Author’s Note: With all the social media upset, domestic political turmoil and winds of war sweeping the country, I decided to share some old memories of an antidote that still serves me and my g-g-generation well.

-Marlow

25 January 2022

Antidote

And then Motor Town music happened to me.

My hometown never hosted big rock and roll acts except for the all-star, hitsville, Motor Town Revues — which were like trips to outer exotica for this white-bread-n-mayonnaise kid. We were placed all the way back in the back of the upper tier of Mershon auditorium like blacks were on the local metro busses. Fair was fair.

See those tiny people way down there?

Check Berry? Tops? Temptations?
Yup to the 3rd power.

That’s James Brown down there.

Who’s throwing bras at him?

That’s Moms Mabley.

What did she just say?

That’s the Shirelles.

Wow.

Wilson Pickett.

“Take me now, Wilson!”

They call me Mr. Pitiful
That’s how I got my fame

Sublime.

Marvin Gaye — the epitome of cool.

Backup singers like the Pips, the Ike-etts, and the Vandellas.

Holee sh*t.

Since everyone in the whole place seemed to be dependent on these brief moments for their lives’ focal point, I now believed these stars were bigger than almost all things in music. Even Elvis.

They were like Picassos.

These shows were the first I ever heard my devils sing almost joyously as they sprang out like a jack-in-the-boxes from inside me with long tongues coming out of their mouths.

Something unknown had begun to stir me.

I was never late to these things despite how hot and oxygen deprived our high-altitude seating area was.

There was something about listening to group after group of folks try over and over to launch the audience into orbits of ecstasy. And to get it done over and over and over.

They were all dressed to nines except for Moms.

Each had a different styles of getting it done. Make us cry. Make us move our bodies. Make us sing and shout. Make us laugh. Stuff just happened to us in our seats without a hitch.

There was no way I could get free of this. I was completely infatuated with them and what they were singing. I started humming their tunes, while walking and snapping my fingers in their cool stage ways, making me an oddity in the hood. I didn’t care.

After the show, folks would stream out into the streets and face life’s adversity with a renewed vigor and joy. People were talking wildly to each other and ever so nice to one another, offering sips from their flasks (Thanks, man.) as they tried to imitate the moves we had seen on the stage

If I was going to grow up in a live music wasteland, this was the antidote.

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