Sounding Elsewhere, Sounding Everywhere: Listening to the Background from Motown and Beyond

The concern of this project is the relationship between voice, space, and the position of Black women in popular music. The project questions the sonic marking of the background vocal along racial and gendered categories arguing how the Black female voice as background, backing, and back-up is a construction produced in order to maintain hierarchical structures. The project seeks to reconfigure the status of the background from one of support to one of (re)production based on the Black female voice as phonic technology.

This relationship is addressed through two case studies. These cases centre on the emergence of the girl group era in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s. It argues that the image and identity of back/ing/ground groups and girl groups during this period are inextricably entangled. The project draws on the role of The Andantes and their work with Motown between 1961 and 1970 and The Blossoms and their work Philles and tenure on Shingdig!. The project use a range of archival material in various formats including vinyl recordings, audio recordings of live performances, televised performances, discussions on fan forums, and interviews.

Indexed across race and gender the background vocalist as (re)productive phonic technology makes links to wider debates relating to race and sonic technologies, invisibility, and the acousmatic voice. Through reconfiguring the relationship between background and foreground it considers how the background produces the foreground rather than simply existing as a supportive framework.