The Motown Top 250 Countdown (#205-201) & This Week's Statistics

Hello, my friends, old and new! The weekend is here, which means it's time for our countdown and our statistics: Here we go!

At #205 we find The Supremes with Back in My Arms Again. Written and produced by Motown's main production team, Holland–Dozier–Holland, Back in My Arms Again was the fifth consecutive and overall number-one song for the group on the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart in the United States from June 6, 1965, through June 12, 1965, also topping the soul chart for a week. The song's middle eight is almost identical to a later Holland-Dozier-Holland hit, The Isley Brothers This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You).

The Supremes run of consecutive #1 hits came to an end after this song when "Nothing But Heartaches" only reached #11. With five chart-toppers in a row on the Hot 100, it gave them the still-standing record for most consecutive #1 hits on that tally by a girl group. They ended up recording six more, all but one written by Holland-Dozier-Holland.

Back In My Arms Again finds lead singer Diana Ross reunited with her man and determined to keep him, even if it means ignoring her friends' pleas to leave him. Supremes Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard get a mention in the third verse, starring as two of the friends hectoring Ross to dump her man:

"How can Mary tell me what to do

When she lost her love so true?

And Flo, she don't know

'Cause the boy she loves is a Romeo"

In real life, their friendship was strained around this time, with Wilson and Ballard frustrated because Ross had become the focal point of the group. They were happy to get their names mentioned though.

The acoustics in Motown's studio are on display in this track, with a warm, organic reverb that was impossible to replicate elsewhere. Among the musicians on the track were Earl Van Dyke on piano and Mike Terry on saxophone. Here it is:

An unlikely cover by the Punk/New Wave group, The Jam, was recorded as a demo in 1976:

At #204 there is For Once in My Life by Stevie Wonder. Ron Miller and Orlando Murden wrote the song in 1965 as a slow ballad and passed it around various singers so that it could be tried out and refined. Among those who, it is claimed, heard and performed the song in about 1966 – but did not record it – are Jo Thompson, a club singer in Detroit; Sherry Kaye, who may have performed it in a musical revue at the Gem Theater; and Johnny Hartman, who turned it down.

At Motown, the song was recorded, perhaps as early as October 1965, by Barbara McNair backed up by a symphony orchestra and produced by Frank Wilson. This was probably the song's first recording.

Jean DuShon was one of the singers who was originally tapped by Ron Miller to demo the song as he was fine-tuning the composition. Miller was impressed by DuShon's rendition, and her version, produced by Esmond Edwards, was issued as a single on Chess Records' Cadet label in October 1966. It was chosen "Pick Hit of the Week" by Detroit's WXYZradio. Although the record label gave the sole songwriting credit to Murden, Motown CEO Berry Gordy discovered that Miller - who was contracted to Motown - had co-written the song, and reportedly asked Chess not to promote the single. DuShon dropped For Once in My Life from her nightclub act and later said: "It was a very big disappointment in my life. I stopped singing it 'cause I didn't have the song. I didn't have anything. It wasn't mine anymore."

Other early versions of the ballad were issued by The Four Tops, The Temptations, Diana Ross, and Tony Bennett, whose recording was the first to reach the US pop charts, peaking at #91 in the Hot 100.

The most familiar and successful version of For Once in My Life is an uptempo arrangement by Stevie Wonder, recorded in 1967. Wonder's version, issued on Motown's Tamla label, was a top 3 hit in the US and the UK in late 1968 and early 1969. This is the version at #204 - and here it is:

Stevie Wonder's version was recorded at about the same time as The Temptations' in the summer of 1967. However, Berry Gordy did not like Wonder's version, an upbeat rendition produced by Henry Cosby. Gordy vetoed the single's release, and the recording was shelved. Billie Jean Brown, the head of the Motown Quality Control department, finally coerced Gordy into allowing Wonder's version to be released in October 1968.

Contrary to Gordy's instincts, For Once in My Life was a highly successful record, peaking at #2 on both the Billboard Pop Singles and Billboard R&B Singles (it was held off from the #1 spot on each chart by another Motown single Gordy had originally vetoed, Marvin Gaye's I Heard It Through the Grapevine.)

This is a live performance by Stevie in 2009, at the concert honoring the 25th Anniversary of the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame:

This is the original recorded version by Barbara McNair:

This is the ill-fated single by Jean DuShon:

This is Tony Bennett's version, which was a minor hit:

Sitting pretty at #203 is Pride and Joy, a 1963 single by Marvin Gaye. The song, co-written by William "Mickey" Stevenson, Gaye and Norman Whitfield, and produced by Stevenson, was considered to be a tribute to Gaye's then-girlfriend, Anna Gordy, his boss' elder sister.

The song was also the third straight (and last) single to include Martha and the Vandellas in background vocals just weeks before Heat Wave made the girl group one of the high-tier Motown acts. The single was also Gaye's first US top 10 pop single peaking at #10 on the chart and just missing the top spot of the R&B singles chart, peaking at #2.

When The Beatles first arrived in New York City in 1964, they requested Murray the K play the song on his radio station. This is it:

The Jackson 5 recorded the song for the G.I.T.: Get It Together outtake in 1973, which would be released in 1976 on their compilation album Joyful Jukebox Music:

At #202 we find Standing in the Shadows of Love by The Four Tops. The Four Tops released this song as a direct follow-up to their #1 hit Reach Out I'll Be There and it features a similar musical arrangement. Despite the likeness to its chart-topping predecessor, the record was still a big hit, easily reaching the Top 10 in both the UK and US. Both songs were written by the Motown songwriting team of Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Brian Holland, and while the instrumentation is similar, the lyrics are very different. Reach Out is about being there for a loved one, but Standing In The Shadows Of Love finds the singer heartbroken and despondent.

This song was recorded by The Four Tops during the first ever session at Berry Gordy's newly acquired Golden World Detroit studio, later dubbed Studio B.

Allmusic critic John Bush calls Standing in the Shadows of Love "dramatic" and "impassioned." Critic Andrew Hamilton calls it a "memorable, unforgettable, timeless blast" which would have made Motown "notable" even if it was the only song Motown ever produced. Hamilton remarks on the song's power to conjure up "mournful" emotions, and particularly highlights the coldness of lyrics such as "standing in the shadows of love getting ready for the heartache to come." Hamilton praises the intensity of Levi Stubbs' lead vocal and how it can make the listener believe that he is about to have a nervous breakdown. It is ranked #470 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Here it is:

This is a good cover version by Barry White:

British R&B singer Craig David sampled the chorus of this track on One More Lie (Standing In The Shadows), in 2010:

Finally for today, at #201, we meet again with Marvin Gaye, this time on a duet with Mary Wells. The song is Once Upon a Time - and it was Motown's first duet single since Sherri Taylor and Sammy Ward's long-forgotten Oh Lover back in 1960, as well as Marvin Gaye's first released duet. The song was co-written by Clarence Paul, Barney Ales, Dave Hamilton, and William "Mickey" Stevenson - and produced by Stevenson. The song discussed how the two narrators felt lonely until they met each other referring to their past as it happened "once upon a time". It was released as a single in 1964 and became a top 20 hit on the Hot 100.

Mary Wells was on the verge of leaving Motown in a blaze of glory. Once Upon A Time was part of an album, Together, which saw two of Motown's hitmakers, Marvin Gaye and Mary Wells, partnered in an attempt to boost each other's profiles.

Marketing ploy or not, there's no denying it's a great match of voices. Once Upon A Time, which was almost exactly a year old by the time Motown finally released it (likely in the wake of the strong initial reaction to My Guy), is a duet in the strictest sense, Mary and Marvin blending their voices together on every line of the chorus and most of the verses, and the effect is remarkable - warm and harmonious and romantic, (which it may well have been - rumors abound that the two were more than just duet partners and Marvin's quote - "I guess you could say the duets were not great for my marriage" was suggestive but leaving room for ambiguity.) This is the song:

Now, let's continue with last week's statistics; I will give you the usual weekly and all-time lists, but, before that, here's our countdown of the top 20 cities with the most visits in the last two years. If you don't see your own city in the top 20, feel free to ask about its placing in the comments' section, I'll be happy to give you the exact position of your city. We have reached the final stretch, today I'll be presenting positions #05-#01.

3/5 cities in the top 5 are in the United States - and the city at #5 is one of them: the city of Chicago. Situated on Lake Michigan in Illinois, it is the third most populous city in the United States and the most populous city in both the state of Illinois and the Midwestern United States. The Chicago metropolitan area often referred to as "Chicagoland", has nearly 10 million people and is the third-largest in the United States and fourth largest in North America. It is the birthplace of the skyscraper and considered the most influential architectural city of the 20th century.

Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed and grew rapidly in the mid-nineteenth century. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless, the city made a concerted effort to rebuild. The construction boom accelerated population growth throughout the following decades, and by 1900 Chicago was one of the five largest cities in the world.

The name "Chicago" is derived from a French rendering of the indigenous Miami-Illinois word shikaakwa for a wild relative of the onion, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as "Checagou" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir. Henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the eponymous wild "garlic" grew abundantly in the area. The city has many nicknames, the best known being the Windy City and Chi-Town.

I thought about dedicating to our friends in Chicago a song from the band Chicago, but that would've been too easy. I would certainly avoid The Night Chicago Died by Paper Lace because I don't want to displease our good friend, the Record Man. Other more viable candidates were the classic Blues number Sweet Home Chicago and Born in Chicago by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. In the end, I decided on a song simply called Chicago, by Graham Nash, the ex-member of The Hollies and of the supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young. The song refers to both the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, as well as the trial of the Chicago Eight, where protesters at the convention were charged with intent to incite a riot. Here it is:

The city at #4 is yet another city in the United States: Los Angeles (Spanish for "The Angels") is the second-most populous city in the United States, after New York City. With an estimated population of four million, Los Angeles is the most populous city in the state of California and the cultural, financial, and commercial center of Southern California. The city proper, which covers about 469 square miles (1,210 km2), is the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the country. It's also one of the cities that I've visited - and I thoroughly enjoyed myself there.

Historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was officially founded on September 4, 1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood. The discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California, later assured the city's continued rapid growth.

Nicknamed the "City of Angels" partly because of its name's Spanish meaning, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, and sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles is also famous as the home of Hollywood, a major center of the world entertainment industry. For most of the world, that's the main connection that they make. But Los Angeles is so much more than that...

The song that I dedicate to our friends in Los Angeles is one that was performed at the legendary Woodstock Music Festival. It's Arlo Guthrie (Woody Guthrie's son) with Coming Into Los Angeles:

There are two non-American cities in today's list is the city at #3 and it's the beautiful city of Athens, the city in which I'm living in for many years and which I call my own. It's hard to speak objectively about it because I know it too well. It can be breathtakingly beautiful, but it can also be quite ugly as well. I will concentrate on the beautiful... Athens (Αθήνα) is the capital and largest city of Greece, as well as one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years and its earliest human presence starting somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennium BC.

Classical Athens was a powerful city-state that emerged in conjunction with the seagoing development of the port of Piraeus, which had been a distinct city prior to its 5th century BC incorporation with Athens. A center for the arts, learning and philosophy, home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum, it is widely referred to as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy, largely because of its cultural and political impact on the European continent. In modern times, Athens is a large cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime, political, and cultural life in Greece. In 2012, Athens was ranked the world's 39th richest city by purchasing power.

The heritage of the classical era is still evident in the city, represented by ancient monuments and works of art, the most famous of all being the Parthenon, situated on the hill of Acropolis, considered a key landmark of early Western civilization. The city also retains Roman and Byzantine monuments, as well as a smaller number of Ottoman monuments.

The song that I dedicate to our friends in Athens is a song from a movie [see photo]. The movie is called It Happened in Athens, was released in 1962 - and starred, of all people, Jayne Mansfield. It took place during the first Olympic Games of the modern era, in Athens, 1896. The music and songs were written by Oscar winner and gay artist extraordinaire Μάνος Χατζιδάκις (Manos Hadjidakis). The song in question is Συνέβη στην Αθήνα (It Happened in Athens) - here sung by Νάνα Μούσχουρη (Nana Mouskouri):

The film version, sung by Hannelore Auer, is worth watching, if only for the presence of Jayne Mansfield:

The United States have the most cities in the top 20, but they don't have the #1 city. The US city that has visited our blog the most is New York. Mind you, there is only a difference of 30 visits between New York City and the city at #1, so the race is definitely on.

The City of New York often called New York City (NYC) or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2017 population of 8,622,698 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles (784 km2), New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 20,320,876 people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described uniquely as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, and exerts a significant impact upon commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, and sports. The city's fast pace defines the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.

Situated on one of the world's largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, each of which is a separate county of the State of New York. The five boroughs - Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island - were consolidated into a single city in 1898. The city and its metropolitan area constitute the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. New York City is home to more than 3.2 million residents born outside the United States, the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world. In 2017, the New York metropolitan area produced a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of US$1.73 trillion. If greater New York City were a sovereign state, it would have the 12th highest GDP in the world.

New York City traces its origins to a trading post founded by colonists from the Dutch Republic in 1624 on Lower Manhattan; the post was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the country's largest city since 1790. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a world symbol of the United States and its ideals of liberty and peace. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance, and environmental sustainability, and as a symbol of freedom and cultural diversity.

There are literally dozens of songs about New York. Although I was sorely tempted to use New York, New York as my dedication to our friends in New York - I thought that it would be too obvious, so I've decided on The Only Living Boy in New York by Simon & Garfunkel. After Art Garfunkel ditched a planned songwriting session for a trip to Mexico, Paul Simon penned this veiled sonic f*ck-you to his partner. In it, he sings of a special kind of loneliness known to New Yorkers, who often wonder why it doesn't seem like there's anything to do in the city where the options are limitless. But the key lyric is the song title itself, which speaks to the idea of being the only one who's truly alive in a city of 8 million anonymous souls. Here it is:

Finally, for today, we go to the capital of the country that I was born in: the city at #1, is London - and although I was born in the Midlands, I have a special affinity for the city. I have visited London a lot as a young man - the trouble is, I was always a guest of elderly relatives, who never gave me the key to their house, which means that I don't really know the nightlife. In my 20s, that really mattered...

London is the capital and most populous city in England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south-east of the island of Great Britain, London has been a major settlement for two millennia. It was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. London's ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1.12-square-mile (2.9 km2) medieval boundaries. Since at least the 19th century, "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent and Hertfordshire, which today largely makes up Greater London, a region governed by the Mayor of London and the London Assembly.

London is a leading global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism, and transportation. It is the world's largest financial center and has the fifth or sixth largest metropolitan area GDP in the world. London is often regarded as a world cultural capital. It is the world's most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the world's largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic. It is the world's leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra-high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Its universities form the largest concentration of higher education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times.

London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2016 municipal population (corresponding to Greater London) was 8,787,892, the largest of any city in the European Union and accounting for 13.4% of the UK population. London's urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The city's metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 14,040,163 inhabitants in 2016, while the Greater London Authority states the population of the city-region (covering a large part of the south-east) as 22.7 million. London was the world's most populous city from around 1831 to 1925.

On this occasion, there were also many songs that I could choose from: The song that I finally chose to dedicate to our friends in London is a classic by The Clash, called London Calling. This is it:

Here are this week's Top 10 countries (a good week for Russia and Indonesia):

1. the United States

2. Russia

3. Greece

4. the United Kingdom

5. Australia

6. France

7. Canada

8. Germany

9. Indonesia

10. Spain

Here are the other countries that graced us with their presence since our last statistics (alphabetically): Algeria, Argentina, Austria, the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, FYR Of Macedonia, Georgia, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Laos, Lebanon, Macau, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Myanmar (Burma), the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Trinidad & Tobago, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe. Happy to have you all!

And here's the all-time Top 10:

1. the United States = 30.1%

2. France = 21.1%

3. the United Kingdom = 12.5%

4. Greece = 7.0%

5. Russia = 2.6%

6. Germany = 1.8%

7. Canada = 1.7%

8. Italy = 1.2%

9. Turkey = 0.88%

10. Cyprus = 0.81%

That's all for today, folks. Till the next one!