The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 646

Big 3 From Motor City BY ROBERT DUNDEE Thank vT I ik 'Thank Heaven rorlitHeGifls I -s5lJ "Tlie Night They Invented Champapie A I- I tkJV jVKtw fS 1 Remember It Wef lfg WatltheothergreatfH'U xjLjir" fa VnJ WWGM Records. Dundee is a novelist and student of Pop culture. His latest novel, about Southern California, is What the Beatles are to Liverpool the Supremes are to Detroit. And what Brian Epstein is to the Beatles, Berry Gordy Jr. is to the Supremes.

If you don't know who the Supremes are, you either have no contact with teen-agers, no radio or television set, or you live in a cocoon. The Supremes Diana Ross, Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard are what's happening, the number one female vocal group in the world. They did this in a year and a half of prodigious singing. Six consecutive records reached the top spot in record sales; they are the first American group to do this. Pygmalion to these, fair ladies is a re-markable 36-year-old song-writer-turned-record-tycoon, Berry Gordy head of what may become Detroit's second largest industry, the Motown sound.

Motown is a contraction of Mo-tortown, the name of the principal enterprise owned by Gordy. The Supremes record for Motown records; so do a score of other vocalists and groups. A Bigger Hand Hip youngsters know who Gordy is. When he was introduced at The Trip here some weeks ago, he received a bigger hand than the artists. For he is Motown, the catalyst who brought together lyric writers and song writers, vocalists and groups, built his record company and artists management company from a borrowed $700 stake into its present incarnation.

Motown performers tour the country, appear in the finest night clubs in this country and abroad, and on such television shows as Ed Sullivan, Dean Martin, Red Skelton, Shivaree and Hullabaloo. The company has branches in the large cities, owns nine buildings including an eight-story office building in Detroit, and may wind up with a movie studio. In a business known for its temperament, competition and corner-cutting, Motown's people remain unspoiled by success. Everybody from the receptionist to president Gordy gets credit for the phenomenal accomplishments. From the original development of material to the finished record, through every phase of the creative and performing activities, Motown is a self-contained unit, the General Motors of popular music.

What is the Motown sound? There's a touch of rhythm and blues, a hint of soul gospel singing, the beat of rock 'n' roll. And yet, this hardly describes it. Backstage in the Supremes' dressing room at Las Vegas' Flamingo, everybody took a turn at describing it. Diana Ross, the whip-thin, quietly intense lead singer, calls it love, talks about it in a line which echoes the lyric in one of the songs they have just finished singing: "Love is the answer. Someone to really love is the answer." Mary Wilson, who has the face of a little child looking through a fretwork of branches, calls it "warmth and sincerity." Florence Ballard just smiles, a kind of eloquent smile which says, I'm not even guessing what it is.

Gordy is articulate. "It's rats and roaches, love, guts and talent. It's many things. We haven't forgotten where we came irom. We were like a thousand other kids on the streets of the Brewster and Douglas projects." He pauses.

"Don't misunderstand, rats and roaches. It's not just climbing up out of poverty. Escaping from it. It's being young, creating, doing things with dignity. It's pride." The pride is evident.

And the candor. And the fact that these people like and appreciate each other and themselves. There's no put-down for middle-aged squares like me. They want to communicate their world. They are interested in my world of books, discuss Truman Capote's "In Cold as perceptively as any group in a faculty dining room.

They discuss the performance. When the girls sang "Somewhere" from "West Side Story," Diana ended the song in Leiiieiaiiuicewe the creators of 'Ityrairiaay Lesue Caron Maurice Chevauer Louis Jourdan Hermione Gingoul Eva Gabor-Jacques IsabeL Jeans saeen play by Alan Jay Lemer music by Frederick Loewe j. directed by Vincente MInnelfi urn, Sun.ttirti Cinemascope and MetrocoLor I SML Lri V7fPPU Thurii LA If IT4 ten Open 1:30 Fii-Sat. fjr yyl Fit iTf I WEbster6 I titftitmn ti i riffiAi i iiui itiiTi risnrnH trnrninti miiui Opto 1230 for Mature) Audience Desmond Davis (Girl with Green Eyes) THE ORIGINALTALKING FILM STARRINB "A wertrt of jr" Eidmlw rntafunemJ CLASSIC OF SHAKFSPFARF'S Philip K. khwr, l.A.

TimM jp-3fr 1 DIRECTS CO-HIT SIMONE SIGNORET (In Her Acad. Award Role) LAWRENCE HARVEY ROOM A TOP "Poetically Conceived It has the ring of authenticity, of life offers unusual rewards for the selective patron" Film Daily TheTamingOf 5 MM PI6KF0RD WfitSsZ, WMl L.A. LV The Shrew DOUGLflS fflMKV GRAND PRIZE SAN SEBASTIAN Jmj tttfc omL 1523 SlnU aolM SR. 3-IG3 Fm Parfcine 4 FESTIVAL LOS FELIZ 1822 N. VERMONT NO.

4-2169 BIG ACADEMY AWARD SHOW XCADEMY AWARD SHOW "Magmticeor w.vsww Moj. K0W 1 NOW FROM THE VERY PRIVATE rAMtcccinuc rc a taruEiAi urn fw LET'S GET DOWN TO THE REAL NITTY-GRITTY Gam PLUS i ALL gib i JEANNE MOREAU in LUlS BUNUEL'S Cantrovertial Film of Morality DIARY CHAMBERMAID MAMMA BAKER DOOLEY Viale comim CANON Or. ttWILSHmi CR. S-3244 "MAMMA WANT'S TO BE A WHAM-WHAM GIRL" REVUE TONITE THROUGH NOV. THE SEATTLE PIKt R0BT.

FLAHERTY'S 1TJTAATS NANOOK OF THE NORTH WHS VIRGINIA' ALSO: W. C. FIELDS WOLF ISA sunsei itllU.lilllll HOLLYWOOD 2-0721 CAM0CA P0RIS tl 1-123 MOVIE HSf.Kin rm. (E S-5572 lone ifitR fWWWT BCTURfS 1 UGSfHM PfiOOUCTBN mi "A must for every balletomane. Ballet at its finest, sheer poetry of motion.

A classic of its kind. Should find wide response." -variety J7 BOLSIIOI MUM USm RIMSKY-KORSAKOV'S RENOWNED OPERA "THE TSAR'S BRIDE" with THE BOLSHOI OPERA COMPANY LIMITED ENGAGEMENT ENDS THURS. NOV. 10 EUROPA 7165 Beverly Blvd. wr Bru 36-401 1 TECHNICOLOR8 REGENT 1045 MOXTON 477-1721 Daily: WESTWOOO VtllAGC 272-0501 ALWAYS FREE PARKING BEST ricore Adult Show MLLR0SE at VAN NESS FOURTEEN jm 'i I UiTWJL.

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