‘Motown 25′: 10 Things to Know Of 1983 TV Special!

Bonnie Lamrock February 27, 2015 News

Paul Drinkwater/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

By Phil Gallo / BILLBOARD

VIDEO On Bottom Of Page: Michael Jackson & The Jacksons Motown 25th Anniversary

The special will re-air Saturday on PBS stations as part of a national pledge drive.

The special that introduced TV viewers to Michael Jackson‘s moonwalk and theTemptations and Four Tops‘ vocal battle will air on 300 PBS stations on Saturday as part of a national pledge drive. The landmark TV special included reunions ofDiana Ross and the Supremes, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and performances by Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and other Motown luminaries.

Watch ‘Motown 25′ Exclusives From DVD Box Set

The airing is tied to the release of new DVD versions of Motown 25, a single disc in remastered surround sound with an hour of bonus material and a three-CD set that includes six hours of extras. Motown: Big Hits & More, a seven-CD set created by TJ Lubinsky, executive producer and co-host of public television’s My Music, is being offered as well.

Here’s a look at the ins and outs of Motown and its artists around the time Motown 25 first aired on NBC on May 16, 1983, with a few oddities thrown in as well:

Big ratings.
The original broadcast of the two-hour show was watched by 47 million people, according to Nielsen, with 35 percent of the country with a TV set turned on watching Motown 25. The show did especially well in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, San Francisco and Philadelphia.

Marvin Gaye’s TV Comeback.
Gaye was never fond of performing on television — check out his performance onSoul Train where he apologizes for his poor lip-synching technique — and 1983 was packed with as many TV appearances as he made in his peak years of 1965 and 1969. He appeared on the Grammy Awards, the American Music Awards and talk shows and sang the national anthem at the NBA All-Star Game. He was murdered a year later on April 1.

Motown and country music?
T.G. Sheppard appeared on Motown 25 despite having had no relationship with the label since 1977. He was, however, the biggest star on Motown’s short-lived country label, initially Melodyland and then Hitsville, which ran from 1974 to 1977. While recording for the Motown subsidiaries, Sheppard had eight songs on the Top Country Songs chart, including two No. 1s and another pair of top 10 singles. After the label closed, Sheppard moved to Warner Music where he charted almost 40 times.

The return of the Four Tops.
Levi Stubbs, Duke Fakir, Obie Benson and Lawrence Peyton had just re-signed with Motown after stints at ABC and Casablanca, where they had recorded late-period hits such as “When She Was My Girl” and “Are You Man Enough.” Stubbs and the Temptations’ Otis Williams decided to stage a battle of the band for the show, a format they have taken on the road for more than 30 years now. The group’s reunion with Motown, however, was short-lived — just two albums before they moved to Arista.

The Supremes’ really short reunion.
Diana Ross, Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong, who replaced Florence Ballard in 1967, reunited for one song on the special, “Someday We’ll Be Together.” Destiny has not filled the promise of the song. An attempt at a reunion tour had been scrapped a year earlier after Wilson balked. In 2000, a Diana Ross & the Supremes: Return to Love reunion tour of the three was scuttled after Wilson objected to Ross receiving a payday nearly four times better than hers: $15 million to $4 million. Ross started the tour, doing the shows with former Supremes she never recorded with, and after attendance fell off, half the dates were canceled.