For the 50th anniversary of the founding of Motown Records, The Associated Press over a period of months invited stars from the fields of music, politics and film to visit Studio A to talk about how the Detroit musical movement has affected them and the larger world.

These are their stories:

BILL CLINTON

Clinton recalled the moment he was summoned to the stage — a make-or-break opportunity where the then-governor of Arkansas could join the big boys and show off his talents to a wider audience.

No, it wasn't the 1988 Democratic National Convention, where he delivered a big speech. This was a governors' conference in northern Michigan the year before. The command performance was to be delivered on his saxophone — during a show featuring Motown stars The Four Tops, Martha Reeves and The Vandellas and Junior Walker.

"At the end of the concert, this guy came up to me and says, 'They want you to come play with them.' And I said, 'You have a horn?' They said, 'Yes.' I said, 'What are we going to play?' They said, "Dancing in the Street.' You know it?' I said, 'Oh yeah,' " Clinton said.

The man who would be elected president five years later said he was handed a sax and "they put one of those damn microphones in the bell of the horn so that everybody would be able to hear me play, no matter how loud everybody else is playing."

Once he got over the initial shock of playing with musicians he had idolized for more than two decades, Clinton told himself he'd "never have another night like this" and went for it.

Clinton, 62, went on to form close friendships with The Four Tops, who played for him — and he with them — at the governor's mansion and later at the White House. He also golfs with Motown Records founder Berry Gordy Jr. But each time, Clinton isn't as much a global political leader as he is a starstruck fan with a horn and a dream.

"I happened to have been president, but mostly ... I think about being in high school and college, and I think about having an unforgettable opportunity to do three gigs with The Four Tops and listening to Junior Walker play his horn an octave higher than I ever could."

TED NUGENT

Nugent and the Jonas Brothers.

Two musical acts not often seen written or spoken about in the same sentence. But the "Motor City Madman" made the connection during his visit to the museum.

The 60-year-old legend — clad in a triply camouflage shirt, hat and sunglasses — was in his element on the sunny Saturday, telling several passers-by that he was "Standing in the Shadows of Love!"

But how do those kings of teen/tween rock, the Jonas Brothers, come into play?

Nugent was discussing the legacy of Motown Records and its famous sound, arguing its influence can be heard in many a contemporary artist.

"I stand rather certain that they (the Jonas Brothers) have been touched by Motown," Nugent said. "They're playing with a sense of groove, a sense of tightness and cohesiveness that comes from that level of musicality.

"So I'd like to think that even what is considered to be in the most transparent pop music — and I'm not trying to sound a death knell for the Jonas Brothers — I betcha they've been touched by the spirit of this Hitsville, U.S.A."

PATTI LABELLE

LaBelle almost married into the Motown family, but it might have come at the expense of her successful singing career.

"We were almost getting married, and we didn't," she said of her brief engagement to Otis Williams of The Temptations. "And I'm happy because he went on to his life and I went on to mine. I think he wanted me to stop singing if we got married, so that wouldn't have been good."

The engagement was just one of several Motown memories she shared.

She recalled losing a singer to The Supremes. LaBelle said the night before a Patti LaBelle and The Bluebelles show, she learned Cindy Birdsong was on a flight to Detroit to replace The Supremes' Florence Ballard.

It was heartbreaking to lose Birdsong, LaBelle said, but she eventually made peace with her former backup singer.

"Cindy, I think, wanted instant fame, and she got it," said LaBelle, 65. "I've talked to her a lot since then, and of course taken that weight off of her thinking that I'm angry. I'm not angry. She did what she had to do."

ANITA BAKER

Baker makes no bones about her love for Motown Records and the sound it spawned in her hometown.

While her jazzy R&B is more smooth and contemporary, she says the music made from the late 1950s to the early '70s in Detroit comes to her "every time I get ready to do a project, every time I pick up a microphone."

Still, the 51-year-old singer knows the evidence that Motown's legacy is good for at least another 50 years rests not with her but with her sons, Eddie and Walt Bridgeforth Jr. Eddie, 15, is a guitarist; Walt, 16, is a drummer.

"I'm well-known as an R&B singer. My son is in a metal band," Baker said, referring to Eddie. "I've never tried to stifle it."

Baker said letting her sons find their own sound has given them the freedom to discover Motown on their own terms — and broaden their musical palette in the process.

She said Eddie actually discovered James Jamerson, Motown's bass-playing phenom, before Jimi Hendrix.

That her boys should develop a brand-new sound fits entirely with Baker's take on the town she still calls home.

"When I think of Detroit, I think of creativity, of creating. We made things and built things that the rest of the world came to us to get."