The sounds of the Motor City groove: Motown’s influence on Glenn Frey’s songwriting
On either coast of America, two cities rule the roost in the cultural discourse. But in between the Californian sun and New York skyscrapers are cities that existed under a grey cloud of working-class hardship and, in turn, platformed some of the very best artists in history. And is there any better than Detroit?
Wrestling with the exploitation of America’s hyper-capitalist approach in the late 19th century, Detroit decided to respond with music. While the city’s titans of the motor and manufacturing industries were closing, artists were emerging, fighting the good fight through music and pedalling a creative resistance.
From the punk urges of Iggy Pop and The Stooges to the soulful sounds of Motown, Detroit became awash with innovation from both sides of the musical spectrum in the late 1960s. You could even argue that Detroit became the most important creative hub in the country at that time.
But in its innovation, it sparked inspiration for arguably one of the most prominent figures in the music industry of the ‘70s. A young Glenn Frey lurked around the clubs and venues of Detroit, trying to understand where the voice of his soon-to-be chart-topping songwriting would exist. But the caustic worlds of Iggy’s punk spoke to him less than the glittering soul of Motown, a world which adopted the young Eagle and made sense of his personality and artistry.
His fellow Detroit native and musician JD Souther once spoke of Frey, saying, “Glenn had two things in spades. He had an incredible sense of humour – a wild, almost infantile love of a really great joke.”
Souther then explained how that aligned with his love for Motown. The upbeat disposition of his jovial nature had a soundtrack, in the form of the city’s rampant groove and breezy soul-laden melodies.
Souther added, “And he had this Motor City groove. He knew every note Motown ever released. He brought the beat. When Jackson [Browne] and I were trying to get David [Geffen] to sign Glenn, we both said, ‘He’s going to make you a lot more money than we ever will’. I remember clearly saying that. We both knew Glenn, and it turned out to be true.”
It’s well known that Frey soon left Detroit. He swapped the rugged city for the sunscapes of California and formed one of the West Coast’s most definitive bands. Frey’s role in the formation of the Eagles’ three-part harmonies soundtracked Los Angeles’ rise to the cultural top in that decade, defining its role within the legacy of classic rock.
But the echoes of Detroit were never too far away. The sun-kissed melodies that Frey laid down with his West Coast counterparts were so clearly informed by the songwriting of Motown, let alone the pulsing rhythms that drove it all forward. So, as American music moved forward into the future, spearheaded by Frey and the Eagles, and celebrated in Los Angeles mainly, it was Detroit that quietly sat in the background watching its blueprint platform the success.
