Thorough Special Marks Motown’s 40th Anniversary

When Motown Records marked its 25th anniversary in 1983, it observed the occasion with a televised concert that’s remembered as one of the most electrifying and emotional network specials of the television age.

Fifteen years later, there’s not much to add to the saga, and few new stars to join the illustrious lineup of “Motown 25,” which among other things unleashed the mature Michael Jackson on the world.

But hitting 40 is a good enough excuse for another special. This one, airing in two-hour segments on Sunday and Thursday on ABC, is called “Motown 40: The Music Is Forever,” and it’s straight documentary rather than special-occasion performance.

It’s easy enough to forget Motown’s current low ebb (sold by founder Berry Gordy a decade ago, the label was recently merged with Mercury Records’ R&B; division) when you’re confronted with this vivid account of the label’s birth in Detroit and its sudden growth into, as its slogan put it, “the sound of young America.”

It’s nothing we don’t know, but it’s fun to be reminded again of the astonishing consolidation of talent under one regime--from the individualistic, eccentric geniuses such as Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye to the powerful singers of the Four Tops and the Temptations to the instinctive entertainers such as Diana Ross and Michael Jackson.

A show about Motown might have taken a lesson from the economy and proportion of the records it’s celebrating, but “Motown 40” tends to sprawl in telling its story, primarily through music clips and fresh interviews with many of the participants, as if afraid to leave anything out. Do we really need to know who RuPaul’s favorite Motown artist was?

The benefit of this approach is an unusual thoroughness. “Motown 40” is refreshingly atypical of network specials--it’s more like the kind of leisurely, meticulous history you find on VH1, BET and other specialized cable niches. Nothing flashy or gimmicky, just a nuts-and-bolts story.

It’s not an expose, and it gets a little gushy and uncritical, but its generous length lets it take the time to frame the story in a social context, and to bring faces and specific memories to the Motown truisms--the artists’ coaching in etiquette and bearing, the in-house competition for hits, etc. It gives due credit to the writing and production teams, and to the studio musicians--little-known performers whose work is part of the pop-music bloodstream.

The label’s decline wasn’t as dramatic as its rise, so the second half loses some momentum as it follows Gordy to Hollywood, where he attempted to become a multimedia mogul and to transform his artists into broad-based, adult entertainers doing show tunes and Bacharach.

“Motown 40” offers no revelations greater than those that flow endlessly from “Dancing in the Street,” “Tracks of My Tears,” “What’s Going On,” et al. But ultimately the show’s recurring reference to Motown as “the soundtrack of our lives” is shown to be no exaggeration.

* “Motown 40: The Music Is Forever” airs 9-11 p.m. Sunday and Thursday on ABC (Channel 7). It has been rated TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young viewers).