MUSICAL SUNSET MEMORIES - PART 2
In the early ‘70s Motown Records moved its operations from a quaint home on Detroit’s West Grand Boulevard to a office building on the corner of Sunset and Argyle in the heart of Hollywood. This move made sense since label owner Berry Gordy had been making major inroads in the television and movie industry, pursuing his label’s crossover dreams in the center of mass media.
Motown’s move west not only resulted in TV specials, animated cartoons, and feature films led by artists on the roster, but would have a profound impact on the creation and recording of all forms of R&B and soul music. Musicians, producers, performers, and record industry professionals from Detroit, Memphis, Philadelphia, Chicago and all the regional scenes that supplied black popular since World War II, moved to Cali in Motown’s wake. LA based labels like Warner Bros., Capitol, and MCA established black music departments to tap into this talent and the market for black music as mainstream pop that Motown had identified.
While most of that ‘70s into ‘80s period in black music remains undocumented, Berry Gordy’s decision to go west is noted via a sign on the corner of Sunset and Argyle.
Aside from Motown being based at 6255 Sunset, the location became a hot spot for managers and publicists who were working with Motown affiliated acts. I have a very vivid memory of interviewing Joe Jackson at his office in the building. Joe was a burly man with a big presence and a lion’s mane of hair. The interview was conducted in the period between son Michael’s ‘Off the Wall’ and ‘Thriller,’ when he was the day to day manager of the Jacksons, and his daughters Janet and Latoya. He was very determined to show he was still running things in Michael’s life (though the Jacksons and Michael had white co-managers.) At one point he called Michael and put him on the phone with me, which was awkward for all concerned. Still, I admired Joe. He’d been a steel worker and part time guitarist in Gary, Indiana. Through hard work and discipline Joe had taken his family from life in a tough Midwest town to sunny California.
This was the long time location of Amoeba records on Sunset. They’re re-opened up on Hollywood and Argyle, but the new location doesn’t quite have the lost in vinyl vibe of this spot, which is now used as an environment for large scale projections of the work of classic painters.
In 1975, when Marvin Gaye re-signed with Motown, he purchased a building at 6553 Sunset, which he had transformed into a recording studio, apartment, and some time dance club. At Marvin’s Room the singer-songwriter recorded the albums ‘I Want You,’ ‘Here, My Dear,’ the dynamic single “Got To Give It Up,” and ‘In Our Lifetime.’ Debts forced the sale of the studio in ‘79 and it was renamed Eldorado Studios. In 1997 John McClain, the A&R wiz who now co-manages Michael Jackson’s estate, purchased the building and restored many of the details Marvin had originally included. Access to the space is restricted to select artists for recording. The most notable release recorded there is Drake’s 2011 single, “Marvin’s Room,” which is on his Take Care album.
If you’re looking for Marvin’s star on Hollywood Boulevard, you’ll actually find it right in front of Marvin’s Room.
I have very fond memories of this intersection. As a noted in my previous Sunset Boulevard post, the Pendry Hotel used to be the House of Blues. Across the street, the white building is the Mondrian Hotel. When I lived there, for most of 1992, it was decorated with red, blue, yellow and black squares, echoing the style of the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian. The hotel in those days was kind of upscale seedy. It was the spot you’d find a Hollywood movie star hooking up with his mistress or a stripper. (Oh yeah, I saw many bold faced names checking in and making out in the elevator.) I started staying there when Run-DMC headlined the Hollywood Bowl with the Beastie Boys opening and both bands and their crew overran the place.
‘CB4,’ the 1993 hip-hop satire I produced starring Chris Rock, was written and rewritten in a suite at the Mondrian and I stayed in the hotel during production and much of post. It’s where Chris and I were during the LA up rising in ‘92. I sat by the pool with a cranberry juice counting the fires across the city. During that same period I met the Hughes Brothers and read an early draft of ‘Menace II Society.’ I told Allen, Albert and screenwriter Tyger Williams they shouldn’t open the film with the murder of the Korean shopkeeper. Thankfully they ignored my advice and made a classic.
During that time Chris and I had a breakfast meeting with Kool G Rap to get his permission to use the lyrics from “Talk Like Sex” for a song we called “Sweat of the My Balls.” I recall Kool G having a wine cooler to start his day and giving his okay to use his lyrics. We’d been trying to write a nasty song, but you couldn’t top “Talk Like Sex.”
I don’t stay at the Mondrian anymore when I’m in LA. The strip is not as lively and I’m into the boutique hotels now. But the memories of Sunset won’t go away even if the buildings do.
Coming soon is a journey up and down music biz Broadway circa ‘70s and ‘80s.