Do you ever go to YouTube music and just browse through the playlists hopeful to find a tune that had made a great influence on your life, a tune that jogs your memory to a time long ago, a tune that you had forgotten just how much you loved?
What a world we live in – no going to the record department at Sears or K-Mart to hopefully find something to enjoy and then having to pay for it, and then returning home to play it until you either become sick of it or wear out the vinyl. God forbid the record got a scratch and began to skip.
While viewing some Motown songs, I uncovered the Four Tops “Baby, I Need Your Lovin’”. Without a doubt, this is my favorite Four Tops song. YouTube allows listeners to make comments about the song that is featured. Sometimes, while the song is playing, especially if there is no video of the artists, I scroll through these comments. Some of these are quite interesting and some are absurd. When I read a comment from a Gene Hesser posted three years ago, my eyes watered up:
“I listened to the Tops and the Temps when I was in the Marine Corps from 1966-1970. I was a white dude from a small town in Iowa . . . didn’t make any difference. Had black Marines that I would have died for as friends. This is the BEST music on earth. All the black groups were class acts . . . beautiful, simply beautiful. WHY IS RACE STILL AN ISSUE?”
Sports and especially music have crossed racial lines and have been the catalysts to change. When I see all major league baseball players wearing Jackie Robinson’s #42 on a specified June day each year, I have hope. When I see blacks and whites at concerts enjoying the same music, I have hope.
Gene Hesser of Iowa, thank you for your comment. Little did you know that an old dude from Detroit would be so affected by it. Baby, we all need more lovin’! Cookie and I are on the hunt to share this love with all.
Photo Credit: Joe’s Records on Hastings’s Street, pre-1967. (Jacques Demetre/Soul Bag via Marcia Music)
