What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)

What Does It Take (To Win Your Love): Jr. Walker and the All Stars Conquer the Hot 100

Junior Walker was one of the most distinctive instrumentalists in the Motown Records roster, a saxophonist whose raw, hard-driving playing style stood in significant contrast to the polished, orchestrated sound that Berry Gordy's organization typically favored. Walker had been recording for Motown's Soul subsidiary since the mid-1960s, and his early recordings were celebrated for their uncompromising instrumental energy. "What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)" represented a new direction in his commercial approach, one that brought him to the widest audience of his career while demonstrating that he could operate successfully in a more melodically accessible mode without sacrificing the energy that made his work distinctive.

"What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)" was written by Johnny Bristol and Harvey Fuqua, two important figures in the Motown creative infrastructure. Bristol and Fuqua had a deep understanding of the label's commercial requirements and a gift for writing material that could work across the spectrum between soul and pop. Their composition gave Walker a lyric that was emotionally direct and melodically memorable, and they produced the recording with a balance of sophistication and rawness that suited Walker's particular strengths.

The single was released in 1969 on Motown's Soul Records subsidiary and became a major commercial success. It peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100, making it one of the highest-charting singles of Walker's career and one of the significant soul hits of that year. The record also performed strongly on the R&B chart, where it reached the top position, demonstrating that Walker could deliver a crossover hit without alienating the core audience that had supported him through his earlier, more instrumentally focused work.

Walker's saxophone remained central to the recording's identity, even as the production acknowledged the song's ambitions beyond the pure instrumental territory that had initially defined his work. His playing in the instrumental passages of "What Does It Take" had the characteristic directness and physical urgency that made him a distinctive voice in the Motown stable, and the production team was wise enough to preserve that quality even while crafting a more pop-accessible arrangement around it. The balance between Walker's rawness and the recording's commercial polish was precisely calibrated.

By 1969, Motown was navigating a complex commercial landscape. The label had achieved an extraordinary run of commercial success across the mid-1960s, but the changing musical environment at the end of the decade, with the rise of psychedelic rock, progressive soul, and more politically engaged African American music, was beginning to create pressure on the label's carefully managed pop formula. "What Does It Take" succeeded in this environment by finding a middle path, a recording that was emotionally direct and rhythmically compelling enough to satisfy soul radio while melodically accessible enough to cross over to the pop mainstream.

Walker's vocal performance on the recording was crucial to its success. He was primarily known as an instrumentalist, and his singing had a rougher, more unguarded quality than the polished vocals of the label's primary stars. But that roughness was an asset on "What Does It Take," giving the lyric's emotional pleading a quality of genuine urgency that a more technically polished vocal might have smoothed away. The production team recognized this and built the arrangement to support rather than polish Walker's natural vocal character.

The song appeared on the album "What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)" also released in 1969 on the Soul Records subsidiary, which consolidated Walker's position as a commercial force at the label. The album demonstrated that he could sustain a full-length recording built around vocal performances as well as instrumental showcases, an important expansion of his commercial range. The title track remained the album's commercial centerpiece and the recording most frequently associated with his name in retrospective accounts of the period.

Walker continued recording for Motown through the 1970s, achieving intermittent chart success, and he was subsequently recognized as an important figure in the history of soul music and in the specific history of the saxophone as a popular music instrument. His influence on subsequent soul and R&B saxophonists was acknowledged by many musicians who cited his playing as formative. "What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)" remained the recording through which most new listeners discovered his work, a song that captured his ability to operate at the intersection of commercial ambition and genuine musical personality.