DETROIT — Everyone returns home sooner or later .... even stars who have left their roots to head for more fertile pastures, like the Copa and Vegas. Less than an exception, Motown is an archetype of that premise.

This year, some of the very best came back, proving, at least for the jive white kids who teethed on it too, that the Broadway approach to soul just doesn’t quite cut it. Not that any show with Martha and the Vandellas, the Chairmen of the Board, and Jr. Walker and his raunchy All-Stars paving the way for the slick sweetness of Mr. MOtown himself, Smokey Robinson, could be without its excitements. Still, for anyone who’s looking for funk with their finesse, the Tamla. titans are nothing short of the biggest disappointment in rock history.

The most tragic case in point is Miss Martha Reeves, the loveliest of ali the Motown women, the one with the most Exquisite sen§f ~o£ material. But Martha hasn’t had a hit since “Jimihy ‘ Mack” and the Vandellas are how a mere parody of their former prowess. • Indeed, Motown, long reknowned for itsI super-slick choreography, has now forsaken that for mere leggy-nefcs and looning. The Vandellas are truly sad* off-mike when they should be on and bipping when they should be bopping.

In general though, the entire trio just seemed bored and the least bit condescending in terms of the type of show they were playing. Designed as a •‘65-esque Motown revqe, the change in style from slick but funky to merely slick has left large gaps in the performers’ capability to excite. Most of Martha’s energy cajne from history (“Love you’ve gone from me and left behind so many memories” seemed sadder than ever). All the stops and raimch have been removed, leaving . . . yes Diana Ross, more beautiful, less elegant, more a lady of the city than Miss Ross, or at least a different part of the. city. One can’t help but wonder if Martha might not be able to come back stronger then ever, were she to’ get the kind of treatment the Jackson Five (and they almost alone) are now receiving.

Still, Martha herself mightn’t agree with that. It’s pretty obvious, she’s more at home in the supper clubs. Now - And the sound system at Olympia Stadium seemed to justify her condescension. Inaudible in the second row, one can only imagine what the balcony suffered. For those who worshipped Martha and the Vandellas from .“Come and Get these Memories” through “Nowhere to Run” and on down to “Jimmy Mack” the entice show merely left a sad and empty feeling.

As white as Martha’s become, the psychedelic. soul of Chairmen of the Board, who appeared next, was even more plastic. Where Martha suffered from a lack of rocking punch, the Chairmen suffered from an excess of rocker punks. The worst psychedelic rock, band I’ve ever seen backed them up, drowning out each vocalist in turn.

The Chairmen, of course, are not specifically Motown — they are a Holland-Dozier-Holland product, on the Invictus label, which was formed after HDH split with the Gordy combine in the late sixties. Still, on the basis of the Chairmen’s recordings, the aesthetic seemed similar.

But, as it turns out, the COB’s live show is a different matter indeed, owing much more to the Temptations’s Sly Stone cops than the original HDH Temptations. Only Danny Woods, a seventies Jackie Wilson, revealed a style that was distinctively soul. As for Harrison Kennedy and the brilliant composer General Johnson, whose Billy Stewart-like vocals pushed the Chairmen’s first hit, they seem to have found new ploys: the more sedate Johnson opting for a shout style somewhat reminiscent of both Elmer Gantry and C.L. Franklin (on the tune he authored for Clarence Carter, “Patches”) and the raucus Kennedy choosing to mime the Ig, in a parody of the “acid-rock” stylisms middle America now seems to love so much. Suffice to say that after Johnson had exhorted the audience into standing for Jesus, Kennedy was found standing in only a pair of lime-green jockey shorts.

To be sure, Woods is an incredible singer, as is the more-than-strikingly handsome General Johnson. But, Kennedy seems to be overbearing throughout the show, bopping about out of place even during the others’ segments; if white youth culture hadn’t learned its lesson about “doing one’s thing” several eons ago, the Chairmen of the Board would serve as the best object lesson I’ve ever seen. And that in a history of walking into the very worst white Sly-kedelic groups.

Of course, this is only the logical extension of the Tempts and Tops and Edwin Starr moves toward what Motown apparently conceives of as psychedelic soul. That Sly Stone has had this much influence on the entire Motown field is a real testament to his prowess; on the other hand, that his influence has resulted in such a dreadful melange calls into question the essential validity of the entire Sly premise. One might wonder if Sly’s name didn’t have vaster implications.

The most striking moment of the Chairmen’s show however was the rush of General Johnson into the audience. He may be the seventies Smokey. Certainly, young black audiences also love him in that peculiar way. Johnson, possessed as he is of immense songwriting capabilities, as well as a one-of-a-kind voice, is a good bet for the kind of superstardom that Smokey, Eddie Kendricks, David Ruffin and Levi Stubbs are now moving towards.

And as he rushed into the audience, as he was engulfed by the crowd, in profile his latently Native American characteristics blending splendidly with his Afroid ones, General. Johnson summed up more than any other person my ambivalence toward his music — for while may one love the music and the power it holds at its finest, one must indeed worry and be ultimately left with only this to ponder: whether fine music, alone and devoid of any involvement with the social issues that are most pressing at the moment, is enough? And whether bad music, which pretends to some sort of sociological perspective is a step in the proper direction? The capitalization of the issues that we face is the most deadly form of co-optation. If the Edwin Starr/Chairmen of the Board audience truly wants “peace love and brotherhood”, is there not an even greater chance that accepting the music as '~i surrogate, is the simplest way to put an end to any chance of getting there? That is a problem that white musicians and its critics have hardly begun to come to grips with, but this is one instance in which we might have something new to add to black consciousness. And that, of course, is the most perplexing puzzle of them all.

Kennedy, whose ego had shone so brightly throughout the evening, jumped back on stage and grabbed the microphone as Johnson lead the masses away. It was as though he was saying (mentally and in future tense) “Ladies and gentlemen, General Johjison, the new popgod, the next king, the real black man’s burden.” Mercifully, the set was over.

(Between sets of course, I run into the guitarist for the band, who takes me to See the Chairmen. Kennedy is personable, not at all the egotist he is on stage, Woods is invisible, primarily concerning himself with keeping the teenyboppers out of the room ... a task at which he is most unsuccessful. Johnson, on the other hand, is shy, quiet, sinlply asking for a light and wondering why in the world I liked the In Session record. I find Johnson and Kennedy so pleasant I can’t help but hope they understand the excessiveness of their back-up group and take steps to correct it. Geiieral Johnson, it rings in my head too loud to deny it, has the aura of the Kennedy’s about him. This man will be a star. If his sincerity is there as much as it seems to be, a great star. Even a leader of people. I was pleased.)

Jr. Walker is as fine as ever. True, he still sounds the same, tune after tune, but who Cares? Ain’t no other soul Sax with THAT tone, and the All-Stars are precisely that, as full of funk and finesse as ever. They hgxken more than any other crew are to see tonight to the mid-sixties Motown, the era of “Where Did Our Love Go”, “Dancing In the Streets” and such memorable Walker goodies as “Shotgun" and “Shake and Fingerpop.” This is hustlin’ pimp city Motown rather than slick Vegas Motown and oh that alone it can be appreciated.

The ending is reminiscent of James Brown, a trifle contrived but still fun for white folk. It seemed worth the price to watch Jr. play his saxophone bent over backwards, to hear “Shotgun” and the rest.

All the All-Stars are in their late thirties. If they were from Chicago, each would undoubtedly be surrounded by hordes of drooling white college boys, drooling blooz accolades, and each of the performers would have his own legend, chronicled in Motown mags from coast to coast. But since Motown appeals still to real black people, who among us is brave enough to rave about mere factory soul?

But now, friends, it’s time for the man who started it all, the star of the show, the gentlemen who gave us “Shop Around”, “I Second That Emotion”, “Tracks of My Tears” and a couple dozen others. The vice-president of Motown records, ladies and gentlemen, the legendary Smokey Robinson with the famous Miracles.

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Out they come, red-silver-and-blue shirted, blue velveteen jumpers, Ronnie White severely balding, Bobby Rodgers a famous football player in form and Pete Moore still the chubbly little soul one remembers from the sixties shows. Finally the pristine elegance of William Robinson, Smokey to the fans. And if you’re a fan, this show is as full of ups and downs as any rock and roll trampoline we’ve been on of late.

It might be a tv special. The band is obviously supperclub,. the Swinging Dashikis with a male conductor in hot pants. Super-lame, though — gone the great Motown bass thump and thunder, gone the drive that propelled the Miracles, and the rest, to the position they are now in. Which is basically that of super-supper stars.

But Smokey is so beloved by everyone concerned that it doesn’t seem to matter. He’s as far removed from the teenage lament that was “Shop Around” as Bob Dylan is from “Like A Roling Stone” but Smokey’s audience doesn’t seem to mind much, for the most part.

Smokey is the kid off the block who made it big, really BIG. That his hustle was music distinguishes him not at all from those who made it with less “respectable” hustles. Smokey is big-time, and that’s what this show is all about. The flashy big time hustler returning to enchant all his old friends. Somehow, ,it hurts (hurts Smokey? hurts me!) that only 5,000 turned out to see him. One remembers the 15,000 at the same hall a year earlier to see the Rolling Stones, and is not pleased.

Still, there are reasons for this. Smokey doesn’t make any attempt to move in the direction of the white, album-oriented audience, nor does he really make any attempt at the hard-core r’n’b’ market, any longer. They play his records on the black stations anyway, of course, but that’s not important; he’s after being Johnny Mathis and you know what? He’s ace at it.

For he has material to work with. Besides one of the most fantastic voices in the universe of music, Smokey Robinson is also possessed of a talent for songwriting that verges on the impossible. All those trite little phrases that could sound so cute when mouthed by anyone else are turned to gems in his mouth: “If you feel like givin’ me, a lifetime of devotion/I second that emotion” or “I don’t like her/But I love her/Seems like I’m always thinkin’ of her”. Mere genius.

All the hits are here, all of “I Second That Emotion”, and a verse of almost everything. Smokey feigns taking requests from the audience, an obvious sham that doesn’t stop all concerned from hollering their faves and being amazed when they do them. They go for 'an hour. All the while, Smokey and the crew seem a notch above the action, as though they really had grown up and come back to entertain the hicks.

Halfway through, Smokey makes a pitch for the Detroit Police Force’s recruiting program, all about we gotta work in the system and get in a' good position ad infinitum, and then they make their big popstar move with a great Carpenters’ medley, that would be dynamite if it weren’t so droll.

The crowd booed Smokey when he suggested that they join the cops, though, and that’s significant. As much as Motown may have deserted them (and only in fulfillment of the crowd’s own expectations, its own desires, making them even bigger as stars) these people have carried on a love/hate relationship. Smokey is rich, for sure, and this crowd for the most part is not. What middle class black family would go to Olympia for a Motown revue (at least in Detroit)? No, they’ll catch Martha at the 20 Grand or Smokey at the Elmwood later. And since Smokey is rich and the crowd is poor, they both aspire to be what he is and resent his attitudes — Bobby Rodgers mutters “Right on” to Smokey’s pitch in a tone that bespeaks a snide fear of rousing the rabble.

Still, B.B. King doesn’t have to endure these deprecations and his first move after attaining star status was to head for Vegas. For my money, I’ll take slick ole Smokey Robinson and his* 'zillion million sellers to King’s “Little Bit of Love” and “The Thrill Is Gone” any day. This is the best soul singing you’re ever going to hear, the most perfect, make no mistake. Michael Jackson would be extremely fortunate to reach adulthood and sound half so good as Smokey does at 30 plus.

They run through tunes I’d have thought they’d forgotten . . . when they get to “Going to Au-Go-Go”, Smokey dances for a chorus, doing THE CHICKEN! If he is as old as he seems, he sure ain’t lost none of his pep. Some of the high-range vocalisms are gone but they are replaced by a lower register voice that is equally sweet and vastly fuller.

The crowd rushed the stage within 30 seconds of the Miracles appearance, where Smokey toys with them constantly, nearly provoking orgasm/hysteria en masse. Only the fact that each tune is cut so short that we miss much of the man’s talent for turning the mundane into profundity is a drawback.

What it all means is questionable. Motown, and its mutants like the Chairmen, seem at this point at a crossroads decision they should, by rights, have made ages ago. Until the Tempt ations rediscovered rock’n’roll via Sly Stone, they probably had. It is true that the future probably belongs to the Edwin Starrs and the Temptations and the Chairmen of the Board (although the Temptations latest single, “Just My Imagination”, is such a wonderful slice of soul, one still can’t be too sure) but that Broadway biz sure seems to have more validity now than it did before. Save for the rare exception — Martha Reeves is the saddest example — Motown as a whole, looks stronger than ever both on record and live. That doesn’t make it good necessarily but, objectively, there are tons of people who swallow' it whole and wallow back for more. And that means something.

Black music will never be made for white audiences . . . that is tomming. That Motown has co-opted some of our least favorite devices is no scandal. We’ve been doing it to them, and their progenitors, for eons — visibly ever since the second Beatles album, with “Devil In Her Heart” and “You Really Got A Hold On Me”. Still, it would be nice to see Martha Reeves get some rockin’ backup, it would be nice to see Martha Reeves understand that she needs that rock’n’roll drive to be as great as she can be. Sung without the previous grit, with all the little halts and pauses removed, Martha is little more than Diana’s fill-in when Miss Ross can’t be there. “Nowhere to Run” and “Come and Get These Memories” now sound little short of ludicrous and that’s a shame. May Martha understand that her old music wasn’t all so bad — better, may she begin to listen and emulate the fabulous Gladys Knight rather then the skinny Diana. At this point, we can use all the help we can get.