Lyric Sheets: Tamla's Golden Years

The Motown Chartbusters Collection has been re-released for Christmas. The famous Hitsville Studio, which was situated in one room of a Detroit bungalow, has now been opened as a museum.

The bassist pulls no punches

The drummer went in hard

The backing voices belted

On West Grand Boulevard

The tambourines and hand claps

Were welded to the beat

When all the world was dancing

To Dancing In the Street

Where Holland / Dozier / Holland

If things came to the crunch

Could write a song at breakfast

Then two more over lunch

To feed the growing needs of

Assembly lines of stars

Who turned out tunes as fast as

The factories turned out cars

Where Gordy groomed his stable

And taught them etiquette

To walk and talk correctly

Or hold a cigarette

When Marvin Gaye or Smokey

Made classics in a day

In Tamla Motown's Tardis

At Hitsville USA

Martin Newell's new book, `The Wild Man of Wivenhoe', is available at pounds 7.00 from Festival Books, Literature Dept, Essex University, Colchester C04 3SQ