TORONTO - Roots is today officially launching a new collection of specially produced CDs at a release party at its flagship store in Toronto. The first album, entitled The Roots of Motown, is an 18-track custom-designed CD that will sell for $12.99 in Roots stores.
Produced by Roots Co-founder Michael Budman in conjunction with Universal Music, the CD features performers from the fabled Motown label who helped shape the music of the 1960s and early 70s. The material is culled from the vaults of Universal. Marvin Gaye, The Four Tops, The Temptations, The Marvelettes, Mary Wells, Edwin Star and others provide the sounds on The Roots of Motown, Volume 1. Roots Senior Art Director Ilich Mejia designed the CD’s cover jacket and inside booklet while Grammy Award-winning musicologist Rob Bowman wrote the liner notes.
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“One of the amazing things about growing up in Detroit in the 1960s was being in the place where music, especially Motown music, had such a vital presence,” says Michael Budman. “Motown made a huge impact on me and Don Green (Roots Co-founder) and has had a lasting influence on Roots. My all time favourite Motown artist was Marvin Gaye who along with his brother Frankie I was fortunate to get to know personally, after I moved to Toronto. It’s an honour to produce this CD and is my way of wanting to share these sounds with new and old fans of Motown.”
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| Ilich Mejia, Senior Art Director, David Young, Senior Designer, Special Projects, both from Roots and Dave Spencer, Manager to the Stars, Dave Spencer Management Inc.. >> |
Jarar Kazmi, Senior Manager, Retail Planning & Distribution, Marshall Myles, President & CEO and Sean Vicary, Senior Graphic Artist, all from Roots >> |
Roots and Universal will be teaming up for other releases in the future. “Universal Music Canada is delighted to be partnered with Roots and the launch of their 'Roots of …' series,” says Heidi Knobovitch, Vice-President, Partnership Marketing and Special Markets for Universal Music Canada. “Roots is committed to the lifestyle of music and their ‘Roots of Motown’ package is a brilliant start to a vibrant musical collaboration.”
One of the highlights of the launch party will be a command performance by the Motown legendary group The Contours who traveled from their home in Michigan to take part in the launch party.
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Motown: Celebrating Life to its Fullest
Excerpted from the liner notes by Rob Bowman
“In the 1960s, Motown Records commonly referred to its music in company communiqués as ‘The Sound of Young America.’ This is music that will soothe your soul, make your body groove and, depending on your age, bring back a whole lot of memories. It does all three of these things for Roots Cofounders Michael Budman and Don Green.
“Growing up in Detroit in the 1960s, Budman and Green had the happy fortune of living at the epicentre of what was then an impossibly exciting, dynamic city. In the 1960s, most of the local citizens still took great pride in the American-made cars that poured off the assembly lines day in and day out. But it was Motown Records (and its subsidiary labels Soul, Tamla and Gordy), which fueled the imagination and greatest civic pride of the local citizenry.
“Yeah, swinging London looked great in the movies and San Francisco could claim pride of place in the emergence of the counterculture later in the decade but the Motor City had Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Martha and The Vandellas, Mary Wells, Jr. Walker, the Four Tops, the Temptations and several dozen other impossibly great groups and solo artists. There was no other American city and certainly no other record label that could claim a talent base with that kind of depth…
“As 2005 gives way to 2006, Motown remains a sound still embraced by old and young alike. For some, it’s the sound of the 1960s. For others it is simply timeless, classic music equally good for shaking a tail feather at parties or falling in love in the back seat of a car. In those ways, it’s not so different from Roots. In the creations of both companies are found the expressive culture of discriminating people who understand what it means to celebrate life to its fullest.”
For further information, contact:
Robert Sarner
Director of Communication and Public Affairs
416-781-3574 ext 4280
E-mail : rsarner@roots.com
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