2. Various ArtistsMotown Chartbusters Volume Five
On the other hand, the other record the big sisters had was the Motown Chartbusters series. I mention Volume Five because that’s when the politics of the civil rights movement finally permeate through. If you listen to Volume Three, it’s still "The Sound of Young America" but by the time of Volume Five, in 1971, it was the music of ’68, ’69, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated, things had turned really dark in America. And you suddenly get this album where the Jackson Five are right next to ‘War’ by Edwin Starr. Or you hear a beautiful song by The Supremes alongside ‘Ball Of Confusion’ by The Temptations. Even Stevie Wonder is singing ‘Heaven Help Us All’. That marriage of pure pop and politics gave me a political sensibility by osmosis. My family weren’t political – I lived in a town where the Labour party ruled, it was never an issue. But from listening to that music in that particular period, I picked up on issues of inequality in that period and the idea that music was a vehicle for expressing the anger about those kind of things. I’m still exploring that path now.
