A Quote by Justin Townes Earle

I love Motown, but I've obviously always been more of a Memphis soul fan. If it's Stax or Motown, I go Stax. — © Justin Townes Earle
I love Motown, but I've obviously always been more of a Memphis soul fan. If it's Stax or Motown, I go Stax.
I often call Daptone the Motown and Stax of today. But in some ways it's different. At Motown, a lot of the musicians didn't get recognized, music got stolen, and people didn't get paid. Or the label would just throw them a pinch of money for their songs. That is one thing we're not doing. Anything anyone writes here, we get a percentage.
I'd heard a lot of Motown and Stax when I was a kid, but the more well-known end of it. On Jam tours, we had a DJ called Ady Croasdell who ran a '60s club. He turned me on to underground stuff and what people call northern soul. It just blew my mind.
My listening changed when I heard music from Stax, Atlantic, Motown because by that age I thought anything that my parents listened to must be square. So I had to find my own rock n' roll, as it were, and I found it in black soul music.
Even though I grew up playing folk music - and surf music, originally - I was listening to Motown and Stax on the radio as well. That music always resonated with me.
For me, Memphis has always been a city that holds a great deal of meaning and also leads me to a lot of thinking. Besides Sun Studio, which helped put rock n' roll on the map all over the world, the legendary Stax Studio also called Memphis home.
There are many influences in my music, not only blues. R&B, Motown, gospel, old timey, jazz, even classical are all part of what I do. I started with classical, then country, then blues, and after that I started listening heavily to Motown and gospel. My earliest efforts as a songwriter were soul. Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, Wilson Pickett, Gladys Knight, James Brown, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and Fontella Bass are just a few of the names that come to mind as the God's of soul and Motown.
My introduction to Motown was through The Jackson Five and Michael Jackson. Michael's been my greatest creative inspiration, so that's how I really became familiar with Motown as a whole, and as I got older, I learned far more about the other groups.
I'm singing the way that I love to sing, which is like old soul, like old Al Green. I grew up about an hour from Memphis. So all that music that I grew up with - the Stax music and early rhythm n' blues - I'm doing that. I'm actually getting out from behind my guitar and I'm singing.
Testify' went from a clean Motown song to straight psychedelic. Loud and feedback and people was loving it, because Motown was ending now.
Motown, Motown, that's my era. Those are my people.
I love funk and soul and Motown.
One of my strongest memories is my father playing bongos in the living room in Detroit listening to Motown radio. He was this skinny white bald guy, but he was really moved by blues and Motown and funk.
I don't ever balk at being considered a Motown person, because Motown is the greatest musical event that ever happened in the history of music
I don't ever balk at being considered a Motown person, because Motown is the greatest musical event that ever happened in the history of music.
Once you're a Motown artist, you're always a Motown artist
Once you're a Motown artist, you're always a Motown artist.
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