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Motown

A Whole Lotta Soul

May 5, 2014

The music closest to my heart (and soul) has been jazz, blues, rumba, son, reggae, soca, R&B, and—later in life—gospel. (This, despite being a godless Jew.) Growing up in Chicago helped. It was home to the powerful WVON (Voice of the N [...]

The Supremes (Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, and Florence Ballard) at Motown Studios. Detroit, 1965. (Magnum Photos)

Love Is Here and Now You’re Gone [private]

Once the fastest-​growing city in America and its fourth largest, the cradle of Motown music is now the country’s leader in urban decline. Its population peaked in 1950; since then, it has lost nine of ten manufacturing jobs and 63 percent of its residents.