The Music of Motown

We all grew up with the sounds of Motown. In this double DVD lesson Alberto Lombardi puts his fingerstyle talents to arrange four all time Motown great hits.
You Can’t Hurry Love: What a happy uplifting song! The key is to get a good groove! An alternating bass reminiscent of Chet Atkins was perfect for most of the song. Alberto uses a tiny bit of percussion on the guitar to capture the original bass groove. Being an up-tempo tune, a few blues licks are added to give an electric guitar feel. Harmonics are introduced in the chorus to replicate the background vocals of the Supremes.
How Sweet it is (To Be Loved By You): This arrangement is based primarily on James Taylor’s cover of Marvin Gaye’s original version. Alberto replicates Taylor’s tenderness and subtleties of his voice with embellishments, slides and legatos.
My Girl: This song has a killer guitar riff! You can’t loose it in the arrangement. Alberto starts only with the riff and bass and then blends the riff with the bass part leaving room for the melodic vocals. As for all Motown vocal parts it’s full of subtleties and the arrangement preserves these.
I Heard it Through the Grapevine: Marvin Gaye sang like an angel! Alberto captures this expressiveness, both using the same refined lines and also the rough sweetness of his attitude. Very close attention was focused on building a bass line that works, very close to the original but appropriate for the “fingerstyle transformation” of the song. You got to keep it snappy and grooving. Harmonics impersonate the breathy vocals of the female background singers while the bass keeps the groove riff going.