so… it wasn’t dylan or mick jagger that deserves the title, but this truly great funk band. in contrast, ‘rock&roll’ is largely carried out in B #…  metaphors pertain. the ‘musical worlds’ that collided in the 60’s cannot be reduced to a single commercially determined nomination.  really? how could that have ever been accepted?

tell me, how are the temptations like the allman brothers:

or like captain beefheart?

or like santana

or even like ravi shankar

and well…

 

so yet another line in my argument that ‘rock’ was always a dead and spurious category. ‘rock & roll’ has never been anything other than a cover for the economic interests of the corporate, music labels’ aim to capitalize music. and they succeeded, unfortunately.

in addition to the extraordinary musical quality of the Temptations track, is it’s visual quality, pre-video. which means that it was produced in a high end TV studio. yet, it set the stage for later visually crude, by comparison, ‘music videos’, along with nicholas roeg’s film of the same time, Performance.

one of things about this Temptations production that is significant, is that it focuses, visually, mostly on metonymic details, on closeup shots, of the musician playing their instruments; not, on spectacularizing the star qualities of the actually performers. and, the audience response, the public dancing to the performance, plays an equally important visual role.

the combination of these three registers makes this Temptation production in all aspects, perhaps the most important work of the period.

in another cultural and visual register, there is of course cheo feliciano, co-contemporaneous.

and just to seal the deal:

with: