Soul, psychedelia and sensuality: Minnie Riperton’s 20 best songs – ranked!
Fifty years on from Riperton’s biggest album, Perfect Angel, we look back at the joyous, octave-jumping oeuvre that turned her from backing singer to pop star
July 2024
Abdul ‘Duke’ Fakir obituary
Abdul ‘Duke’ Fakir, last surviving member of Four Tops, dies aged 88
June 2024
War, disastrous sex and a lot of lawsuits: the chaotic aftermath of Motown’s peak years
Ranked
From pillowy pop to foot-stomping beats: The Supremes’ 20 best songs – ranked!
February 2024
Henry Fambrough obituary
Vocalist and last surviving founder member of the American soul and disco group the Spinners
October 2023
Rudolph Isley obituary
Katherine Anderson obituary
May 2023
Stream team
The Big Chill at 40: rewatching the defining ensemble film of the 1980s
Director Lawrence Kasdan had his starry cast live together for weeks to get to know each other – and the result is a poignant film about friendship and loss
April 2023
‘At 83, I still feel sexual’: Smokey Robinson on love, joy, drugs, Motown – and his affair with Diana Ross
Ain’t Too Proud review – a Temptations jukebox musical by numbers
January 2023
Barrett Strong: the Motown hitmaker was modest almost to a fault
Stevie Chick
Though he was quick to credit others’ contributions, Strong’s songwriting was absolutely critical to the label that remade American pop music
Barrett Strong obituary
Motown singer and songwriter whose hits included I Heard It Through the Grapevine, Papa Was a Rolling Stone and Money
Barrett Strong, singer, songwriter and Motown’s first star, dies aged 81
Strong sang on the label’s first hit Money in 1960 and went on to co-write landmark songs including Heard It Through the Grapevine and War
December 2022
Ranked
The 20 greatest Christmas albums – ranked!
Whether you fancy a heartwarming carol with Elvis or the story of a yuletide drug dealer from OutKast, there’s a festive album for you in our rundown of the best ever
November 2022
Bruce Springsteen cover reignites row over lost northern soul classic
Who saved Frank Wilson’s Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) from Motown oblivion?
October 2022
Ivy Jo Hunter obituary
‘We carried pistols to defend ourselves’: the Four Tops and the Temptations on six decades of soul
September 2022
Mable John obituary
First female singer signed to Motown whose later hit for Stax, Your Good Thing, became a classic of deep soul
August 2022
From Reach Out I’ll Be There to Heat Wave: six of Lamont Dozier’s best songs
The hugely influential Motown songwriter and one third of Holland-Dozier-Holland, who has died aged 81, wrote for the likes of Diana Ross, the Four Tops and Chairmen of the Board
