Posted on 11/29/2024 2:11:31 PM PST by nickcarraway
The founder of Motown Records was born in the city he helped make synonymous with soulfulness, Detroit
A company that was started with a loan of $800 went on to help shape the sound of the 20th century. We could only be talking about Motown Records, founded on January 12, 1959 by Berry Gordy Jr, who was born in the city he helped make synonymous with soulfulness, Detroit, on November 28, 1929. Unfailingly spritely, just ahead of his 90th birthday, Gordy announced his retirement at the Hitsville Honours ceremony, safe in the knowledge that his achievements will last forever.
Gordy built his empire on his early success as a songwriter, notably of “Reet Petite,” “Lonely Teardrops” and others for perhaps the pre-eminent black music entertainer of the late 1950s, Jackie Wilson. Detroit, the Motor City itself, was sharing the fruits of America’s post-war economic boom, and there were possibilities for a young and savvy business creative, as we’d call them now. But no one, surely not even Berry himself, could have known exactly the global dimensions that those possibilities would assume in the coming decades.
Fueled by Gordy’s songwriting experience, his innate business instincts and that loan from his family, it all began with Marv Johnson’s “Come To Me.” Co-written by the singer with Gordy, who also produced the song, it was released as the first single on Tamla Records (catalog number Tamla 101) on January 21, 1959. Almost from the beginning, Gordy had success beyond the size he could cope with.
As “Come To Me” began to expand beyond Detroit and turn into a national success, his embryonic Motown company was, as yet, far too small to do it justice. Gordy, astute from the first, licensed it to United Artists, and “Come To Me” went on to nestle at No.6 on the R&B chart and No.30 pop. The seeds were sown.
The businessman on the factory floor
Experts have debated the secrets of Motown’s success through these following six decades, but if there were any in those early times, Gordy’s focus on a close-knit environment was key. So was his ability to attract, and then to hone, the elite among local talent to the company by being the actor-manager, so to speak: the businessman who was on the factory floor, just as he had been when he worked at the Ford Motor Company’s Lincoln-Mercury plant some years before.
That, and the combination of glorious creativity and rigorous discipline. That union made the Motown benchmark higher than just about anyone else’s, and it took what would previously have been known as race music into the homes of Americans of every creed and hue, and then their counterparts around the world. Those who worked with and for Gordy tell stories of his ruthless adherence to the standards he set himself and expected of others.
Hitsville forever
The glory days of Gordy’s empire can surely never be matched in the modern day music environment. They’ve been imitated often enough, and the echoes of what Berry, and everyone connected with the company, built reverberate around the world every hour of every day. Motown: The Musical rode the endless tidal wave of affection for the company’s legacy, after premiering on Broadway in April 2013, and that indestructible love affair continues with the admirable documentary to which the executive was key, Hitsville: The Making Of Motown. We rejoice in the fact that none of it would have happened without Berry Gordy Jr.
Great post!
The list of Motown performers is phenomenal. I won’t even try to list them, because I would forget too many.
Even though they were founded in 1959, they had more #1 hits than any record label in the world in the 60's. Gordy also enforced a "conservative style" on them, until soemtime in the 70's.
I grew up in flint in the 1960’s, that motown sound was all around
Motown, along with nonmotown soul performers, hit in the mid sixties in the wake of the Beatles and the English rock movement. I was a teenager at the time, and it was music to dance to.
Berry Gordy:
Typically, promiscuous negro who knocked up Diana Ross.....out of wedlock.....and people are celebrating him?
Shameful!
I once heard of another typically, promisuous negro who.....
01. ) Attended communist party meetings in the 1950s.
02. ) Declared “conscientious objector,” status so that he would not have to serve in the military, which is simply another way of saying, “I am a coward.”
03.) Had many orgies with causasian females while married to his wife!
04. ) He was the worst hypocrite the planet has ever seen, and now has a U.S. holiday for himself?!?
I repeat, “Shameful, to all who now celebrate them!”
Before you call me all kinds of names, please let the word, “Typically,” sink into your brain. The names shall not bother me nor will I reply!
They tried so hard to push all the “civil rights” protests on him, and he didnt wany any part of it...in fact, he hated it. He said from the start, “i just want to make music, make some money, and meet girls”. How American is that, i ask you...
Yes.
Not to forget The Funk Brothers (studio band). They sold more records than any band in history - even the Beatles. Just no credit for it
Give Me a Kiss--The Hornets (1964)
This is the "Detroit version" of "Shop Around," which was a local hit in the fall of '60. The hit version" was released shortly afterwards.
Love's Gone Bad--Chris Clark (1966)
“Not to forget The Funk Brothers (studio band).”
I had no idea. I knew Motown had sessions bands but didn’t realize they were credited with anything. Thanks for the tip!
I’ve heard all of that before, but don’t think it’s relevant on this thread.
Berry came up with an assembly line method of song production one pint of which was a badass intro, and he had a HELL of a lot of very talented people around him many of whom were young and untried and not exactly in high demand elsewhere in the industry.
I’ve seen at least one documentary about the Funk Bros., and it was so interesting! Also the studio band The Wrecking Crew. Amazing musicians!
“I’ve heard all of that before, but don’t think it’s relevant on this thread.”
The thread celebrates him, does it not?
What I found interesting about the Swampers was they were all local white country guys who arraigned and played on many soul artists like Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge. No music charts. Improvised until they got it right - usually with in a few takes.
What does MLK have to do with thread?
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