Album Challenge - 1966 pt. 2 - Motown Madness

More of the Album Challenge. I really can't seriously consider this a challenge about my taste in music without some soul music and it could happen in any year... but especially 1966.

Soul music was always an important part of my listening to music obsession. From the very beginning I had some Motown Madness going on. Soul music was a big part of our neighborhood in the Germantown section of Philadelphia when I was a teenager there in the 1960's and a very big part of the teen dance scene throughout the city.

I started getting some Motown 45 rpm singles in 1965 along with a few other songs that were in heavy rotation on the AM stations in Philly. I had a nice stack of 45's back then. Later on in 1966 I realized I could get more bang for the buck getting some of the Motown compilation albums... various volumes of their 16 Hits. 

Right away I got the Volume 5 and 6 that were released in 1966. I got a few more over the next few years along with some great albums by so many of the Motown artists of the time. A significant percentage of my album collection consisted of soul music. 

I was also fortunate enough to be able to get to a Motown Revue show that year and one the following year. The shows consisted of one band on the stage with a parade of different vocal groups singing the hits. I got to see The Temptations, The Supremes, The Marvelettes, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Martha & The Vandellas, The Contours, The Miracles, The Four Tops, etc. They were a lot of fun.

Later on in the mid 1970's I collected the Motown anthologies that were multiple LP sets. Then sometime in the mid 1990's I got the 4 CD box set Hitsville USA: The Motown Singles Collection 1959-1971. I also have multi-disc singles collections from other record companies... Stax, Atlantic, Chess Soul and of course that great 6CD box set Beg, Scream and Shout: 60's Soul.

And of course along the way I've accumulated lots of single artist compilations.

Last fall I read an amazing book that was focused on Detroit 1967 and Motown Records. Detroit 67: The Year That Changed Soul by Stuart Cosgrove published in 2015.

My love of soul music came out of an earlier love of doo-wop which of course was part of the soul music of the 1950's. Throughout

the 60's and especially around 65 and 66 I listened to a lot of "oldies" music on the radio and collected a few oldies compilation albums too. 

I should also add that over the years I have made many many mixes of soul music and especially from this time period. One of my earliest mixes was a set of soul music on cassette tape that was the recreation of the stack of 45's I played for some of our parties back in 1968. Every song on the mix was played in our basement rec room parties. Still sounds great.