Motown:

The Golden

Years

The Stars and Music That Shaped a Generation

BY Bill

Dahl

PHOTOS

BY

Weldon A.

McDougal

III

© 2001 by

Bill Dahl

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in critical article or review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper or electronically transmitted on radio or television.

Published by:

Krause Publications

700 E. State Street

Iola, WI 54990-0001

Telephone: 715/445-2214

Web: www.krause.com

Please, call or write us for our free catalog of antiques, collectibles, sports and music publications. To place an order or receive our free catalog, call 800-258-0929.

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2001090717

ISBN: 0-87349-286-2

eISBN: 978-1-44022-557-4

Printed in the United States of America

DEDICATION

To Margie Dahl, who instilled a love of swinging, soulful music in me at a very young age that refuses to fade (just like my love for her).

CREDITS

The author and editors extend a special thank you to the following people and companies for their photo contributions to this book:

David Alston’s Mahogany Archives: Photos, picture sleeves, records

Hank Thompson: Motown concert posters

John Rothenberg: Supremes albums covers

Orpheus: Sheet music covers

BMI Archives Photo Collection: Photos

Robert Pruter: Record album covers

George Livingston: Photos

Allan Slutsky: Photos

CONTENTS

PART 1

MOTOWN 1959-1972 DEFINING THE SOUND OF YOUNG AMERICA

PART 2

A DOZEN MOTOWN SUPER STARS AND ONE TERRIFIC HOUSE BAND

The Four Tops

The Funk Brothers & The Motown House Band

Marvin Gaye

The Jackson 5

Gladys Knight & The Pips

Martha & The Vandellas

The Marvelettes

Smokey Robinson & The Miracles

Diana Ross & The Supremes

The Temptations

Jr. Walker & The All Stars

Mary Wells

Stevie Wonder

PART 3

MORE MOTOWN GREATS FROM A-W

Abdullah

Arthur Adams

Luther Allison

The Andantes

Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson

Janie Bradford

Johnny Bristol

Dorsey Burnette

G.C. Cameron

Choker Campbell

Bruce Channel

Chris Clark

The Commodores

The Contours

Hank Cosby

Carolyn Crawford

Hal Davis

Sammy Davis, Jr.

Debbie Dean

Kiki Dee

Different Shades of Brown

The Easybeats

Billy Eckstine

The Elgins/Downbeats

Yvonne Fair

The Fantastic Four

King Floyd

Harvey Fuqua

Raynoma Gordy Singleton & The Rayber Voices

Herman Griffin

Hearts of Stone

Joe Hinton

Holland-Dozier-Holland

Brenda Holloway

The Hornets/Johnny Powers

Ivy Jo Hunter

Willie Hutch

The Isley Brothers

Chuck Jackson

Jay & The Techniques

Jazz Crusaders

Mable John

Marv Johnson

Terry Johnson

Gloria Jones

Bob Kayli

Eddie Kendricks

Earl King

Liz Lands

Lee & The Leopards

The Lewis Sisters/Little Lisa

Hattie Littles

The Lollipops

Shorty Long

Love Sculpture

Henry Lumpkin

Tony Martin

Hugh Masekela

Barbara McNair

Messengers

Mike & The Modifiers

Amos Milburn

The Monitors

Frances Nero

The Originals/Freddie Gorman

Gino Parks

Clarence Paul

Paul Petersen

Pretty Things

Barbara Randolph

Rare Earth

David Ruffin

Jimmy Ruffin

San Remo Golden Strings

The Satintones/Chico Leverett

The Serenaders

The Sisters Love

The Spinners

Edwin Starr

Mickey Stevenson

Stoney & Meatloaf

Barrett Strong

Bobby Taylor & The Vancouvers

R. Dean Taylor

Tammi Terrell

Sammy Turner

The Twistin’ Kings

The Underdogs

The Undisputed Truth

The Valadiers

Connie Van Dyke

The Velvelettes

Singing Sammy Ward

Kim Weston

Norman Whitfield

Andre Williams

Blinky Williams

Frank Wilson

Syreeta Wright

Syreeta Wright

BIBLIOGRAPHY

It’s a daunting prospect to write a book about Motown. After all, millions of words have already been committed to paper about the greatest rhythm and blues label of the 1960s, the company that obliterated the chasm between soul and pop and launched the careers of a dozen superstars. There have been beautifully illustrated coffee table examinations of the label, honest and revealing autobiographies of its stars, and a few sleazy tell-all tomes that deserve permanent enshrinement in the nearest trash barrel. In researching this volume I’ve read most of them, and credit their combined insights accordingly in the bibliography.

Instead of focusing on the sociological implications of the Motown story (and they’re gargantuan), this book examines the music that Berry Gordy and his associates marketed during the label’s golden years and the myriad artists, writers, and producers that worked so diligently to conceive it. The Motown story officially began in early 1959, when Marv Johnson’s Come To Me was the first 45 to proudly bear the Tamla label (though in reality it harks back a couple of years before that, when Berry Gordy began writing and producing hits for other labels), and we end in 1972, when the company pulled up stakes and headed west to Los Angeles. In any event, it’s a convenient stopping point for a logo that thrives to this day under corporate ownership. The book is divided into three parts—a basic overview of the golden years, in-depth examinations of the superstars most inexorably associated with Motown (and the band that backed them), and shorter bios on the rest of the greats that comprised the label’s talent roster in the last section.

Weldon A. McDougal III

The genesis for the project was the revelation that Weldon A. McDougal III—former Motown promotion guru (he traveled extensively with Motown’s top artists on the road, introducing them to the important deejays who could make or break their next release while making sure that everything ran smoothly for his acts at their shows) and one-time director of special projects for the label—had a treasure trove of candid photos from the late ‘60s and early ‘70s that deserved publication in book form. Weldon snapped most of his pictures in color, and the ones gracing this book offer a rare glimpse of Motown royalty in more relaxed settings than circumstances generally allowed—letting their hair down after concerts, during the creative process, or playfully posing for the camera (there are a few striking performance shots as well).

Weldon had already made a name for himself in the music industry before he began working for Motown. He was one-quarter of the Larks, a doo-wop group that hit in 1961 with It’s Unbelievable, and a successful producer (he formed Harthon Productions with Luther Randolph and Johnny Stiles and produced releases by Eddie Holman, the Volcanos, Barbara Mason, and a wealth of other mid-‘60s notables). Weldon was surely the only full-time Motown employee allowed to retain his residence in his hometown of Philadelphia rather than moving to the Motor City.

Born October 28, 1936, McDougal was bitten by the doo-wop bug while attending West Philadelphia High School. It was a group called the Dreams, and another group called the Castelles, and both of the lead singers were my friends, said Weldon, who adds his first-person insights on the stars he knew as friends throughout the book. George Grant was in the Castelles, and George Tindley was in the Dreams. They used to get so much notoriety when we’d go to school—everybody was talking to them—that I wanted to sing with them. And they wouldn’t let me sing with them. They said, ‘Why don’t you get your own group, man?’ So that’s what I did.

American Bandstand was airing live every day after school a few blocks from Weldon’s house, and the tall lad snagged a gig as a doorman at the TV studio prior to enlisting in the Marines. When he got out of the service in 1959, he reassembled the Larks. It took a year before I finally found the guys that were the Larks, that we finally recorded, he said. Jerry Ross produced their It’s Unbelievable, which rose to No. 69 on Billboard’s pop charts in early ‘61 on the strength of Jackie Marshall’s strong lead tenor and the harmonies of Calvin Nichols, Earl Oxendine, and the deep-voiced McDougal. Talk about full circle: the Larks guested on Dick Clark’s legendary TV program one day, sharing the spotlight with future Motown star Chuck Jackson.

Philly was loaded with R&B talent. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins used to live in my neighborhood. There was a hoagie store across the street from where he lived. So it was a running joke: You ever see his casket out there, you know he’s home, said Weldon. If you ever messed with his casket, he would go off. And the thing that was so ironic about it, it was sitting outside of his door!

Though Harthon thrived for a time, Weldon grew disenchanted with the business end of the operation and branched into promotion during the mid-‘60s for locally based Chips Record Distributors. "They handled Motown Records. So I just started promoting Motown. When I say I started promoting, nobody ever told you what record was a hit or wasn’t a hit. I would listen to ‘em, and I’d promote what I thought the disc jockeys would play. I started doing that, then I started talking to some of the guys at Motown. Because, at this time, I didn’t know anybody at Motown. Then I started talking to Irv Biegel, who was the director of promotion. And Irv used to say, ‘Hey, man, promote this record,’ or ‘Promote that,’ or do this and that. I was doing pretty good, meaning he would tell people at Motown what I was doing. Because I was just a local guy; I hadn’t met Berry at this time.

"I worked like that for around eight months. Then Irv Biegel left Motown. I don’t know why. When he left, I used to talk to Phil Jones and another guy from Texas, his name was Al Klein. I did such a great job in Philly, they asked me to work from Boston to Miami doing the same thing I was doing in Philly. That would have made me a regional promotion man. I said okay.

So I started to work for Motown regionally, and I started making a lot of noise, started getting a lot of records on. I’d be able to promote records in New Orleans where the average guy couldn’t even get in there to talk to the music director, he said. "After that, they hired me to do the Midwest also. I worked like that for a couple years. Then they hired me to do the whole country. I was the national promotion director. And I did that for a couple of years.

Working for Motown, I worked with all the acts in different capacities. Most of the time, I would meet ‘em in a different city, and I would introduce ‘em to the disc jockeys, he said. "I used to take all of the artists to record hops, when they used to have record hops. Here in Philadelphia, the Temptations, I would take ‘em to Hy Lit’s record hop. ‘Heavy’ Harvey Miller, Jerry Blavat, Georgie Woods, and all of these guys. I would take ‘em to their record hops, and have ‘em sign autographs.

One day, the director of sales and promotion, Barney Ales, said, ‘You’re doing a pretty good job. What do you want to do?’ I said, ‘Why don’t I have a department called special projects?’ He said, Let’s try it.’ So one of the things I thought I should do was, when an artist would go to a city, I hooked them up with the disc jockeys. Not by just going over to the station. Like I would invite ‘em to lunch. That was the main thing, invite ‘em to lunch. When I was with the Jackson 5, I used to have them bring their kids over to lunch with the Jackson 5. And that worked out really well."

Being a Motown promo guru sometimes meant making the impossible possible. When there were no limousines left in all of Nashville to chauffeur Smokey Robinson to the Grammys, he knew a woman to contact at a local radio station for last-second advice. She told me to call an undertaker, said Weldon. He was dressed so impressive. I mean, he had on a red mohair suit, and a red hat. When the limousine drove up to the Grammys, people were just saying, ‘Oh, man, Smokey—I knew he would have the best.’ I really felt proud that I worked that out.

Weldon remained at Motown into the mid-1970s, when he was unceremoniously let go by then-president Ewart Abner. Knowing how to pick a winner, he then hooked up with Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff’s Philadelphia International empire in a promotional capacity. Weldon remains a player in the industry as a record producer. He’s been in the studio lately with his protege, singer Shirley Slaughter. He steadfastly prefers not to live in the past, looking instead towards the next potential hit.

Along with Weldon, whose Herculean efforts towards lining up interviewees from Motown’s golden years have been invaluable, I’d like to thank Goldmine R&B editor Robert Pruter, as always an indefatigable source of research material and sage advice. And of course, thanks are due to Paul Kennedy, Brian Earnest, Kevin Sauter, and Greg Loescher of Krause Publications.

Thanks are also due the many Motown luminaries who took time to share their memories specifically for the book (several are preparing autobiographies, promising more insight into the Hitsville creative experience): Katherine Anderson Schaffner, Jack Ashford, Bertha Barbee-McNeal, Norma Barbee-Fairhurst, Janie Bradford, Johnny Bristol, G.C. Cameron, Hank Cosby, Carl Cutler, Louvain Demps, Freddie Gorman, Cornelius Grant, Jackie Hicks, Brenda Holloway, Joe Hunter, Mable John, Jeannie Long, Pete Moore, Frances Nero, Nate Newsome, Gino Parks, Sylvester Potts, Johnny Powers, Martha Reeves, Jimmy Ruffin, Edwin Starr, Barrett Strong, Kim Weston, Sondra Blinky Williams, Frank Wilson, Mary Wilson, and Timothy Wilson. I conducted the interviews with Arthur Adams, the late Luther Allison, Tommy Chong, Dennis Edwards, Abdul Duke Fakir, King Floyd, William Guest, Chuck Jackson, Earl King, Merald Bubba Knight, Jay Proctor, Smokey Robinson, Claudette Rogers Robinson, Bobby Rogers, the late Jr. Walker, the late Ronnie White, Andre Williams, and Otis Williams for various feature articles over the last two decades, and thanks are due all of them as well.

Thanks, too, to Kingsley Abbott, Bill Baker, Cary Baker, Bruce Bramoweth, John Broven, Bill Brown, Dave Christiansen, Gina Cutro, Margie Dahl, Peter Gibbon, Rob Gillis, Julie Henderson, Lori Jernberg, Dave Juricic, Dave Leoschke, Jim Letrich, Miriam Linna, Brenda Mabra, Gabrielle Metz, Billy Miller, Stephen Nicholas, Yvonne Odell, Liz Rodgers, Liese Rugo, Barbara Shelley, Val Shively, Mark Sodetz, R.J. Spangler, Dave Specter, Harry Weinger, and Robert Jr. and Shirley Mae Whitall, all of whom contributed in one way or another (and in some cases, several).

This book can best be enjoyed when accompanied by a non-stop soundtrack from Motown’s golden years. If it inspires you to stock up on more, whether on exquisitely packaged boxed sets of shiny CDs or scratchy, beat-to-hell original vinyl, so much the better!

Hitsville U.S.A. at 2648 W. Grand Blvd.-Motown's Detroit headquarters.

PART 1

MOTOWN 1959-1972

DEFINING THE SOUND

OF YOUNG AMERICA

(Photo courtesy of George Livingston)

$800 and a dream. That was the sum total of Berry Gordy, Jr.’s assets when he launched Tamla Records in 1959. Over the course of the next 13 years, his enterprise grew so successful on such a massive scale that its name would become an eternal synonym for its original Detroit home base. Motown.

Gordy borrowed those eight bills on January 12, 1959 from his extraordinarily tight-knit family, and they were none too thrilled about forking it over to fund the formation of something so frivolous as a rhythm and blues record label. After all, his track record wasn’t the greatest. His jazz record shop had been a flop, and writing R&B songs could hardly be construed as a reliable source of income, even if he’d built a fairly enviable track record as a supplier of hit material to Jackie Wilson. But Berry possessed a few intangibles that set him apart from the other feisty music entrepreneurs sprouting up around Detroit as the city developed a reputation as a hotbed of hard-nosed, church-imbued rhythm and blues.

First of all, he had a razor-sharp eye for talent, surrounding himself with young standouts like Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Mable John, and Marv Johnson. Second, he understood the importance of telling a self-contained story in his songs, intrinsically grasped the value of a catchy hook and a memorable chorus, and wasn’t shy about offering songwriting advice to others. Most importantly, Gordy possessed a steely determination— an unquenchable will to win, no matter the obstacles before him—and the icy nerve of a riverboat gambler. Nothing would deter him from making Motown the most successful black-owned record firm in the country.

Gordy would market his label’s output as The Sound of Young America during the mid-1960s. Though the slogan may seem presumptuous, it was no idle boast. Black or white, rich or poor, teenagers loaded their record collections with the latest hits by the Supremes, Temptations, Miracles, Marvelettes, Martha & the Vandellas, Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Gaye. Pop deejays might have sometimes hesitated to spin new platters from well-established R&B diskeries such as Stax or Chess, assuming their appeal might be limited largely to African-American listeners, but they harbored no such qualms about airing Motown’s product.

The Sound of Young America.

This was happy, immaculately produced soul with a tightly crafted pop edge and an uplifting tinge of gospel at its core, and its appeal was universal.

As the decade progressed, Motown led the charge to eliminate the gap between pop and rhythm and blues. Not only did Berry retain his bedrock demographic (labels from coast to coast as well as in his own backyard were copying the Motown sound shamelessly), his scrupulously groomed acts were versatile enough to croon Broadway ditties on Ed Sullivan’s Sunday evening CBS-TV variety hour and perform song-and-dance routines on the stages of mainstream nightclubs that would never have considered booking other soul-rooted acts. The instruction those artists received from Motown’s Artist Development Department during the mid-‘60s encompassed everything from choreography to advanced vocal harmonies to etiquette.

With all that explosive success came wholesale expansion as the decade climaxed, leading to a gradual dissolution of the all-for-one, one-for-all family atmosphere that had defined and nurtured the creative experience at Hitsville, U.S.A. (as the sign above the door of Motown’s humble headquarters—a rehabbed two-story home at 2648 West Grand Boulevard— proudly proclaimed). Some of the label’s artists began to question the firm’s handling of their careers and finances (Motown managed and booked its artists through the in-house International Talent Management, Inc., acting as their financial adviser as well), and the acrimonious 1968 exit of red-hot songwriting/production team Holland-Dozier-Holland caused an avalanche of high-profile litigation that tarnished the company’s carefully cultivated image of familial harmony. Florence Ballard was ousted from the Supremes and David Ruffin left the Temptations, yet both groups seamlessly survived the upheaval. But those in-house crises never blunted Motown’s creative juices or slowed the millions flowing into the label’s bank accounts.

Gordy began slowly but steadily shifting his base of operations to sunny Los Angeles during the late ‘60s. He pulled up stakes altogether in 1972, leaving a great many of the label’s artists, producers, and staff musicians in the breach. Though some recording activities continued at Hitsville for a while, the move west marked the close of Motown’s golden era, though the label’s flagship superstars—the Jackson 5, Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, the Temptations—would continue to prosper for the rest of the decade and then some.

All those resounding triumphs were far off in the future when Berry Gordy, Jr. entered the world on November 28, 1929 at Detroit’s Harper Hospital. He was the seventh child born to Berry Sr. (eventually beloved by one and all later at Motown as Pops) and Bertha Gordy, who had emigrated from Georgia in 1922 with the first three of their children in tow. In all, the Gordy brood would number eight: Fuller, Esther, Anna, Lucy (who would later change the spelling of her name to Loucye), George, Gwen, Berry Jr., and Robert.¹ Pop’s successful contracting business allowed the family to acquire a commercial building on the corner of Farnsworth and St. Antoine, an intersection located a short distance from wide-open Hastings Street, and the Gordys settled in upstairs. Just about that whole block belonged to the Gordys, noted Mable John. After studying business in college, Mrs. Gordy co-founded the Friendship Mutual Life Insurance Company. Berry eagerly embraced the finer points of jazz, gambling, and boxing during his formative years, fighting on the same 1948 card as the legendary Brown Bomber, Joe Louis, at Detroit’s Olympia Stadium. He voluntarily closed out a respectable career as a featherweight fighter in 1950, determining that songwriting was more conducive to his long-term health and well being.

After a 1951-1953 Army stint in Korea, Gordy returned to civilian life, opening his own 3-D Record Mart–House of Jazz. Though it promised Everything in Music on its business card, the store ended up being a resounding dud because a jazz-obsessed Berry was too stubborn to stock 78s by down-home bluesmen John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters that neighborhood folks craved. By the time he relented, it was too late to bail out the business.

Opting for domestic bliss, Berry married Thelma Coleman and quickly sired three children, settling into an assembly line job at the Lincoln-Mercury plant (its mechanical efficiency would inspire a similarly strict work ethic at Motown). But by 1957, Gordy had quit his steady job at the auto manufacturer to pursue a career as a professional songwriter.

The Motor City’s massive concentration of auto manufacturing plants brought thousands of southern blacks to town during the 1940s and ‘50s in search of work, and they packed their love for gospel and blues for the long trip north. The blues strip was jumping with John Lee Hooker, Eddie Kirkland, Eddie Burns, and Bobo Jenkins among its resident headliners, and a healthy local jazz scene was happening thanks to gents like Barry Harris and Yusef Lateef. Rev. C.L. Franklin was building a gospel dynasty from within at his New Bethel Baptist Church, where his three startlingly talented young daughters—Erma, Carolyn, and Aretha—starred on Sundays.

The Flame Show Bar, located at the corner of John R and Canfield, opened in 1949 and was the showplace for top African-American entertainment in Detroit during the ‘50s. Billie Holiday, T-Bone Walker, Wynonie Harris, and Dinah Washington all starred at the 250-seat Flame at one time or another, and its house band, the Wolverines, was led by future Motown Artists Development Department mainstay Maurice King. The Gordys were already entrenched in the luxurious nightspot by the time Berry began hanging out there. Glamorous older sister Gwen was in charge of snapping souvenir photos of the club’s patrons, vivacious Anna ably assisted her, and brothers George and Robert developed the film. Flame co-owner Al Green invited Berry to write songs for the artists he managed, including a young knockout named Jackie Wilson. Teaming with Roquel Billy Davis at Green’s office, he cut his teeth as a songsmith even as his marriage disintegrated.

Wilson tore into Reet Petite (The Finest Girl You Ever Want To Meet), a brassy, swinging collaboration by Berry and Billy (under his exotic Tyran Carlo alias), as his first dynamic single for Brunswick, and it became a pop hit in late 1957. Bringing Gwen into the creative equation, the trio penned several huge sellers for Wilson over the next couple of years—the majestic To Be Loved, a stirring Lonely Teardrops, the rocking That’s Why (I Love You So) and I’ll Be Satisfied—solidly establishing themselves as purveyors of hits. Berry was getting his feet wet behind the studio glass, too. His first official production in 1957, Ooh, Shucks, was sung by the Five Stars and pressed on the Mark-X label. The vocal quintet included future Originals C.P. Spencer, Walter Gaines, and Hank Dixon.

When Raynoma Liles and her sister, Alice, nervously auditioned for Berry one auspicious day, not only did Gordy meet his next wife, he came across a dynamic lady who could help him make hit records. Miss Ray, as she came to be known around the fledgling company, had perfect pitch and could write lead sheets. The romantic duo soon formed the Rayber Music Writing Company. For $100, they would do whatever was necessary to help a young singer make a record, be it writing, arranging, rehearsing, or recording a demo at local deejay Bristol Bryant’s basement recording studio.

...we had Berry Gordy, and that was what gave us the outlet.

This was a fine way to uncover fresh talent as undiscovered singers flocked to the facility. One of those walk-ins, Wade Jones, had the only known release on the Rayber label: Insane. Another, Eugene Remus, cut a 1960 45 for Motown. The diminutive Raynoma put together the Rayber Voices, a studio vocal group that backed most of Motown’s first acts on their early recordings. Named for Raynoma and Berry— Gordy had an ongoing thing for contractions—their initial ranks also included bass Robert Bateman, Brian Holland, and William Sonny Sanders.

But the aggregation that would change Gordy’s life forever (and vice versa) first crossed his path during an unsuccessful audition for Wilson’s manager, Nat Tarnopol (Green had since passed away), and Alonzo Tucker. Though that pair of misguided talent scouts gave the Matadors the thumbs-down, Berry dug their unusual blend and chased them down after the audition to enthusiastically tell them so. It was the beginning of a close friendship between Gordy and the Matadors’ lead singer, Smokey Robinson—and the start of something big for the group. They soon changed their handle to the Miracles.

Berry produced the quintet’s 1958 debut single, a sly answer to the Philadelphia-based Silhouettes’ smash Get A Job logically titled Got A Job, and licensed it to George Goldner’s End Records in New York. There was an End follow-up for the quintet as well, but when the postman finally delivered the long-awaited royalty check to Berry’s door, its ridiculously tiny sum total and a similar lack of tangible return on the hits he’d co-written for Wilson prompted Gordy to form his own label, Tamla Records (he tried to name it Tammy after Debbie Reynolds’ sugary hit ballad, but the moniker was already in circulation).

That was the turning point in all of our lives, no question about it, said Smokey in a 1993 interview. That’s what made Detroit different, as far as I’m concerned, because there are talented people everywhere in the world, in every small township. Every big city has talented people. But we had Berry Gordy, and that was what gave us the outlet.

Gordy made what may have been his best move of all by founding his own Jobete Publishing Company (named after his three children with Thelma: Hazel Joy, Berry, and Terry). If you wrote for Motown, you were published by Jobete—simple as that. During the ‘60s and ‘70s, the Jobete catalog’s holdings would multiply exponentially as it grew to be one of the most powerful publishing houses in the industry. However, the first Jobete-published song didn’t appear on a Gordy-owned label. Herman Griffin’s ‘58 waxing of I Need You for Carmen Murphy’s House of Beauty logo was a Gordy production, however.

The $800 loan from the Gordy family’s Ber-Berry Co-Op savings fund was enough to get Tamla up and running on a local basis, but Berry didn’t have sufficient national distribution set up for his new enterprise. He was going to record this song on Marv Johnson, which was the very first Motown song ever, said Robinson. It was a song called ‘Come To Me.’ He decided he was going to do it on his own label, but it was going to be a local label. So he did that, and the record broke so big locally until he had to go to New York and make a deal for Marv Johnson with United Artists Records.

Mabel John’s Who Wouldn’t Love a Man Like That was the first Motown release by a female (courtesy of David P. Alston’s Mahogany Archives).

Johnson’s enviable run of 1959-1961 national hits— notably Come To Me (the first locally issued Tamla release in January of ‘59) and his Top Ten pop sellers You Got What It Takes and I Love The Way You Love–were placed with United Artists, while the Miracles’ Bad Girl, Motown’s debut single in the fall of ‘59, was leased to Chicago’s Chess Records, although they all emanated from Berry’s domain. Perhaps because his top sellers came out on UA instead of Motown (a contraction of Motor Town), Johnson’s role in the launch of Hitsville has too often been overlooked.

He was in there, too, said Barrett Strong, whose Money (That’s What I Want) put Tamla on the map in 1960. Nobody mentions Marv, but Marv had a bunch of hits there in the beginning.

In what amounted to regional prototypes for the national Motown tours to follow, Berry set up revues that spotlighted several of his young artists. Two February 21, 1959 shows at the Melody Theatre in nearby Inkster, Michigan, for example, were headlined by Marv Johnson, with the Miracles, Mable John, Eddie Holland (whose first Tamla 45, Merry Go Round, was handed to United Artists for national release just as Johnson’s had been), and the Rayber Voices sharing the evening’s bill.

In the early days, whenever there was a release on two or three artists, Berry would arrange for theaters to have a show in theaters, so that we could be seen and be heard. Because you have to have a place even to be bad, so you can get good with an audience. He always arranged to showcase the artists, said Mable. When he recorded us, even if we were on another label at first, his whole thing was to promote us and do as managers do. Showcase us, see to it that the public knows who we are, and break the record. ‘Cause that’s what he was trying to do—first of all, in our hometown. That’s one of the first things that put Detroit on the map.

He had a way of making us all feel very wanted, very much a part of a family.

Gordy was generally cautious about signing vocal groups, settling for only the tightest harmonic blends. He landed the Satintones very early in his empire’s rise. They debuted on Tamla in late ‘59 with the jumping Motor City and inaugurated Motown’s 1000 series in 1960 with a creamy My Beloved. Despite the presence of Sonny Sanders, later a prolific soul arranger, and Robert Bateman, who doubled as the Rayber Voices’ bass singer and one of Motown’s early recording engineers, the group never got going and was history by late ‘61.

Even when Motown was operating out of the couple’s tiny apartment at 1719 Gladstone Street, before Ray happened upon the Grand Boulevard site that would be designated as Hitsville U.S.A, Gordy fostered a nurturing family atmosphere much like the one he had known to encourage his talented young proteges and offer them a home away from home where they could indulge their passion to make music.

Mrs. Bertha Gordy, the matriarch of the mighty Gordy clan, sits at her Hitsville desk while signing Weldon’s monthly expense check (Weldon A. McDougal III photo).

It was a part of my life, said Smokey. In the beginning of Motown, when he very first started Motown, there were only five people there. And we did everything, man. We packaged records. We called disc jockeys. We took records to record stores, to radio stations. We did everything.

Mable John, whose 1960 single Who Wouldn’t Love A Man Like That was the first Motown single by a female singer, had been patiently coached by Gordy and was there from day one. We were a family, and we were trying to make it work, build a company, see that everybody had a hit, so everybody contributed to whatever was needed. I did, actually, the first promotion on the first release that was on the Tamla label. I got on a bus in Detroit and went to Chicago, she said. I talked to United Record Distributors that was in Chicago there on South Michigan Avenue. Ernie Leaner was the man that owned it. Because he was a black guy and he had a big line, we thought that he would be sensitive to our needs. And I went on a bus and did that—just carried it to him in my hand and made the first contact.

He had a way of making us all feel very wanted, very much a part of a family, said Bertha Barbee-McNeal of the Velvelettes, who would join the company in 1963. Berry had that sense about him, because he was raised that way. We are the way we’re raised, and I think all of us that came under his auspices are lucky for him to have been a role model, a father role model that some of us didn’t have. He got it from his father and mother, who were together until the day they died.

Berry’s parents were there. They shared their parents with us, said Martha Reeves.

A deal was struck for the building at 2648 West Grand Boulevard in August of 1959. Utilizing Pops’ construction expertise, the place was quickly whipped into shape as Motown’s new home. Studio A, where so many immortal classics were painstakingly laid down, was located just a short stroll past saucy receptionist Janie Bradford’s desk. There was an apartment upstairs for Berry, Ray, and their infant son, Kerry.

I remember when they first got the building on the boulevard. It was an old artist’s studio. I think it was an artist, a painter, who had that place. I go back to when there was nothing in that room that we used to record in but a ping-pong table and an upright piano, said the Originals’ Freddie Gorman, then an aspiring songwriter and singer and a full-time mailman. It started from there. Then they started getting the equipment. Berry Gordy’s father was a carpenter, and he started working with that control room to make that what it was. He changed things around several times.

Gordy was admittedly a perfectionist in the studio who wasn’t averse to tinkering with his early releases even after they had been pressed up and shipped off, resulting in several intriguing variations on certain singles. One version might have strings and another not, or one pressing may sport a different 'B' side from the next, despite bearing the same release number.

Tamla and Motown had some local competition. Though its recording scene was relatively primitive during the ‘50s, Detroit hosted a few small indie labels: Hastings Street record store owner Joe Von Battle’s JVB (original purveyors of Aretha’s earliest gospel efforts and a load of rough-timbred blues wax), Wes Higgins and Robert West’s Flick, Contour, and LuPine imprints (the Falcons’ West-produced 1959 hit You’re So Fine, initially on Flick before sharp-eared United Artists picked it up nationally, is often cited as one of the first true soul recordings), and the most successful outfit of the lot up to that point, Jack and Devora Brown’s Fortune Records, which boasted a fine talent roster stocked with the influential doo-woppers Nolan Strong & the Diablos, the Five Dollars, the Royal Jokers, and Andre Williams.

What’s more, Berry’s sister had beaten him into the record business. In 1958, Gwen and Billy Davis set up Anna Records (named after Anna Gordy) in the family building, with Berry sometimes producing masters for the label. Anna’s first two releases were polished outings by the Voice Masters. Later releases included sides by veteran New Orleans pianist Paul Gayten, the Falcons, and young unknown Joe Tex (his ‘61 outing Ain’t I A Mess rocked like crazy and finished the label off in style). Gwen was as busy a budding music entrepreneur as Berry in the early days. Splitting with Davis, she formed another partnership with ex-Moonglows lead singer Harvey Fuqua in 1961, with the pair inaugurating the Tri-Phi and Harvey logos. Over the next couple of years, their labels would introduce the Spinners, Shorty Long, Jr. Walker & the All Stars, and Johnny (Bristol) & Jackey (Beavers) before Berry absorbed both labels in ‘63 and welcomed Fuqua—by then his brother-in-law—into the extended Motown family.

Davis, in turn, hooked up with Chicago-based Chess Records to open the short-lived Check-Mate imprint, which issued singles by David Ruffin, Ty Hunter, and Allen Bo Story—all later associated with Motown— during its brief early ‘60s run. More than in any other urban metropolis, Detroit’s R&B labels were primarily the province of feisty African-American entrepreneurs during the ‘60s. Even rarer, the scene was by no means a male enclave. Even Berry’s ex-wife Thelma got in on the act: her mother Hazel Coleman and session guitarist/producer Don Davis formed Thelma Records and put out fine platters by Emanuel Lasky and Ohio Untouchables guitarist Robert Ward during the early-to-mid-‘ 60s. Davis would operate other notable Detroit diskeries, including Groove City, before hooking up with Stax and producing Johnnie Taylor’s ‘68 million seller Who’s Making Love in Memphis.

The first national hit Gordy produced for his own company emanated from an impromptu writing session with Bradford. Eighteen-year-old pianist Barrett Strong was on the premises when the pounding rocker Money (That’s What I Want) was being brainstormed on the fly, pounding the 88s and cutting loose with a raucous vocal that translated into stardom when the song vaulted to No. 2 on Billboard’s R&B charts and a highly impressive No. 23 pop in early 1960. Tamla still wasn’t equipped to break a national hit on its own, so Gwen stepped up to help out her little brother, pressing Barrett’s incendiary rocker on her bigger Anna label once it got hot locally.

We had dreams, and we believed in our dream."

We were just a bunch of kids getting together after school, and just hanging out and making music and having a good time, said Strong. I think until this day we really don’t understand it. But it all worked out. We had dreams, and we believed in our dream.

Every general needs a loyal, trustworthy lieutenant, and Berry unexpectedly had his stroll through the front door of Hitsville, looking for work. William Mickey Stevenson was hoping to interest Gordy in his singing skills. Mickey was second-generation show biz (his mother Kitty was a respected Detroit R&B singer), having sung professionally, written songs, and dabbled in record production. Gordy wasn’t all that impressed with the newcomer’s pipes, but envisioned the streetwise Stevenson in the heretofore unfilled role of A&R (artist and repertoire) man. The job description turned out to be a great deal more complicated at Motown than most companies.

Mickey wrote songs, produced sessions, procured musicians from the local clubs, and took care of sundry day-to-day problems that sprang up around the facility, with Berry fearlessly delegating authority to his assistants.

Mickey took over something that was brand new, even to the company: A&R. He did that very well. A lot of the artists were under his direction, said Janie, who kept a close watch from her bird’s-eye perch at the receptionist’s desk during the early years. We had a big A&R department, and he was over it, so he must have been doing whatever he was doing right.

Stevenson’s corner of Hitsville became a beehive of musical activity.

I had 14 people in that office, said Reeves, who went to work as his secretary in the fall of 1961 and immediately encountered creative folks requesting, ‘Hey Martha, sing that song!’ ‘What do you think of this?’ ‘What word goes with that?’ ‘We need a third voice down here,’ or ‘Can you do the handclaps with these two people?’ Or ‘How about some handclaps? How about some finger snaps? Stomp on this board!’"

Santa Claus was good to Berry and Motown during the Yuletide season of 1960. As the snow flew and bells jingled, the Miracles’ Shop Around was rocketing to the top of the R&B charts, where it remained for eight long weeks from mid-January to mid-March of ’61, and made a thrilling No. 2 showing on Billboard’s pop hit parade. Shop Around was perhaps the ultimate example of Gordy’s perfectionist tendencies as a producer: He roused Smokey out of a sound sleep in the wee small hours of the morning and commanded him to immediately convene his group at the studio to recut it—after it had already been pressed, shipped, and at least locally, aired on the radio. At the same time, Berry’s new discovery, 17-year-old Mary Wells, was well on her way to scoring a Top Ten R&B seller with her debut Motown release, the bluesy, hoarse-voiced Bye Bye Baby.

If all those glad tidings weren’t enough to make Berry’s holidays merry, Gwen introduced him to an introspective young man noodling at the Studio A piano during Motown’s Christmas party. In short order, Marvin Gaye, who had migrated to the Motor City from Washington, D.C., as Fuqua’s protege, was signed to a Tamla contract. It took a little time before Marvin could be convinced that his jazz leanings wouldn’t propel him to stardom, but after his mellow first album stiffed, he got with the program.

Motown execs Phil Jones and Barney Ales (Weldon A. McDougal III photo).

As important as it was to produce potential hit records, it didn’t mean much if they weren’t flying off the shelves. That was Barney Ales’s responsibility. Hired near the end of 1960 to head the sales department after impressing Berry as a local distributor for Tamla and Motown, the Italian-American Ales would accrue massive power over the course of the decade—so much that perhaps only Gordy himself had more power within the halls of Hitsville. Ales and his crack sales staff—Phil Jones, Irv Biegel, Al Klein, and others—would tirelessly ensure that Motown’s pop profile was stronger than any other R&B company’s in existence, helping to obliterate the barriers that had artificially separated the two genres in years past.

Not content to simply sell records, Gordy launched International Talent Management, Inc. Choosing his sister, Esther Gordy Edwards, to head the venture, Berry thus kept every facet of his budding stars’ careers positioned securely under one corporate umbrella. ITMI managed Motown’s artists, helped get them bookings, acted as their accountant and financial adviser, and provided career guidance.

Practically the entire Gordy clan was heavily involved in Motown’s day-to-day operations. Sister Loucye, who married saxist Ron Wakefield (he took the solo on Shop Around), headed the sales and manufacturing departments as well as Jobete Music. She’s the one who would call us in when we were struggling with our impatience, waiting on a record to actually hit, to make the charts, said Martha. She would call us over and she’d show us the progress, which was a kindly gesture. She didn’t have to do that. She kept our minds settled when other records were soaring, that ours were coming up in the ranks. Tragically, Loucye died in 1965 of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Berry’s younger brother Robert Gordy, one-time recording artist (as Bob Kayli) and longtime head of Jobete Publishing Company, in his office on Woodward Avenue (Weldon A. McDougal III photo).

Berry’s younger brother Robert then assumed the Jobete reins, his resume listing a brief stint as a recording artist under the alias of Bob Kayli (his rocking novelty Everyone Was There was one of Berry’s first hits as a producer in 1958 on the Carlton imprint). George Gordy often went under the nickname of Horgay Gordy when he wrote songs, and he also worked as a producer. Oldest brother Fuller Gordy was in charge of administration, dealing with personnel and company policy. Even Berry’s mom had her own desk at Hitsville. His mother used to have to sign all of the expense checks, said Weldon. When you’d go in there for her to sign the checks, she would ask you what you do, and how’s things goin’, you know? Berry brought his blue-collar business experience to the enterprise: His employees punched a time clock every morning, just like at the Lincoln-Mercury plant.

When five young ladies from Inkster, calling themselves the Casinyets, dropped by for an audition in April of ‘61 after placing fourth in their high school talent contest, there was no outward indication that they would be the act to hand Motown its first pop chart-topper—especially coming as it did on their Tamla debut single. Informed by young producers Brian Holland and Robert Bateman (billed collectively as Brianbert, another of Berry’s contracted handles) that an original piece of material was required if they wanted to make a record, they went home and cooked up Please Mr. Postman. After a quick name change to the Marvelettes, their rocking concoction blasted off and landed at the top of the pop charts that December, with Gladys Horton shining bright as their lead vocalist.

The Marvelettes scored their very first time out and kept on making smashes, but some other acts took longer to break. Such was the case with the teenaged girls who introduced themselves to Berry as the Primettes. They would hang out endlessly in the Hitsville lobby, soaking up the atmosphere and volunteering to sing backgrounds. They were officially signed to the label in 1961 and renamed the Supremes, but their first singles—I Want A Guy and the dance workout Buttered Popcorn—sold in such minuscule quantities that they were known in some quarters as the no-hit Supremes. Still, there was something about that lead singer with the big eyes and dazzling smile that one couldn’t help but notice.

They were young girls, but they had class. And they hadn’t been taught anything. They just carried themselves that way, said Gorman, who co-wrote I Want A Guy. Diana, she would always dress differently. I remember where she used to live, down in the Brewster Projects. I don’t know if she would wear her mother’s clothes or what, but the way she would dress, she just was different. She always carried herself that way. It was obvious that she was destined to be someone of notoriety.

It’s what’s in the grooves that count.

Singing Sammy Ward and Gino Parks were also on the primordial roster. Both were the proud owners of prodigious pipes, Ward specializing in gut-grabbing blues. But by the time Motown began to make its move toward the top in 1963 and ‘64, both of these standout vocalists were gone, as was Mable John, who thought the bluesier environs of Stax Records in Memphis more conducive to her vocal strengths.

Some acts contributed a grand total of one or two memorable singles to the early Motown legacy. The Equadors, whose Someone To Call My Own was a fine slice of flowing mid-tempo doo-wop (ditto the Creations’ This Is Our Night), LaBrenda Ben (her strutting The Chaperone was written by gospel A&R man George Fowler), Pete Hartfield, Don McKenzie, Mickey McCullers, and anonymous instrumental outfits like the Swinging Tigers and Nick & the Jaguars didn’t tarry for long as Berry momentarily tried different acts and discarded them just as quickly. Gordy had a thing for answer records: The Satintones responded to the Shirelles’ 1960 mega-hit Will You Love Me Tomorrow with an affirmative Tomorrow And Always, and someone named Little Otis had the temerity to taunt Gene Duke Of Earl Chandler with his ‘62 sequel I Out-Duked The Duke.

Not all of Berry’s new imprints were major successes. Miracle Records debuted in January of 1961 and was gone by the end of the year, having introduced both Jimmy Ruffin and the Temptations during its truncated lifespan.

They discontinued that, because when the distributors would be calling in ordering the Miracles’ records, they would get it confused with the Miracle label, explained the Tempts’ Otis Williams in a 1981 interview. So Berry changed that, because it was a conflict with the Miracles group. He changed it to Gordy. Its purple label featured the inarguable if grammatically debatable slogan It’s what’s in the grooves that count. Gordy was inaugurated by the Tempts in March of ‘62 and both thrived over the long haul, though of the quintet’s first half dozen releases, only Dream Come True made any national impact.

Another less-than-prolific imprint, Mel-O-Dy, was inaugurated as an R&B outlet in mid-1962 for a few 45s, then reborn as a pop-country imprint as 1963 ended, attracting Dorsey Burnette, Bruce Channel, ex-Dot Records rockabilly Howard Crockett, and Oklahoma-born Gene Henslee (he made some fine country boogie sides for Imperial a decade earlier) to its limited stable until it closed up shop in ‘65. Divinity Records, Motown’s short-lived foray into gospel, opened shop in ‘62 and lasted approximately a year. The Wright Specials, with a pre-secular Kim Weston in their ranks, had two of its few releases.

Workshop Jazz was likely the most ambitious undertaking of the bunch. Launched in 1962 with a series of singles that preceded a dozen LPs or so in 1963-64, the logo afforded a cadre of Studio A regulars with jazz proclivities a welcome chance to stretch out for the length of an album. Among them was pianist Johnny Griffith with and without vocalist Paula Greer, guitarist/vibist Dave Hamilton, trombonist George Bohanon, saxist Lefty Edwards, and trumpeter Herbie Williams. Chicago pianist Earl Washington, a longtime member of drummer Red Saunders’ band and the brother of saxman Leon Washington, cut a pair of Workshop Jazz LPs (he’d enjoyed a regional hit for Checker in ‘58 with Misirlou), and the Four Tops almost had their jazz-rooted debut album, Breaking Through, appear on the imprint (it was canceled at the last moment).

Though the Supremes and Tempts were slow out of the gate, 1962 was a terrific year for Motown overall. Under Smokey Robinson’s patient tutelage, Wells softened her vocal persona and embarked on a string of airy, Caribbean-tinged delights. Her The One Who Really Loves You, You Beat Me To The Punch, and the sly Two Lovers all cracked the pop Top Ten, and the latter pair were R&B chart-toppers. Smokey’s Miracles ended the year with what would prove their second record to pace the R&B hit parade, You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me.

With several hits under their collective belt, the Miracles were in demand for out-of-town gigs, but the endless road jaunts were less than luxurious. They were hectic, man, said Robinson. "Hectic and grinding.