Erstellt am: 15. 5. 2009 - 18:30 Uhr

MercyMercyMe: 50 Years of Motown

What started as an $800 dollar loan from relatives, became a billion dollar, multi-award winning musical movement which influenced the American civil rights movement, and the evolution of pop culture.

Motown Records

When I started working on this Saturday's Reality Check Special all about Motown, I was actually stunned at how many Motown tunes I knew. Maybe just a refrain or even a bass line but more often than not, I knew entire songs and didn’t even know that I knew them. It’s as if Motown had somehow seeped itself into my brain but what I think may have in fact happened is that Motown has seeped itself into the social conscience of many parts of this world generally.

Berry Gordy was a bit of a hustler fifty years ago and he had all sorts of jobs in and around Detroit, Michigan. One of his many forms of employment took place in a car assembly plant of which there were many more in Detroit fifty years ago as compared to now. His work in the assembly plant would be reflected in his work ethic when it came to the record label he launched thanks to the $800 he managed to borrow from his family. He may not have had a lot of cash but what he had in abundance were ideas and very, very talented friends. The poor areas of Detroit where his friends lived - The Brewster Projects - was chock-a-block with talent in fact. The teenaged Diana Ross, the young and handsome Marvin Gaye, the smooth-voiced crooner Smokey Robinson, the man who went on to write 29 number one hits in a very short span of time Lamont Dozier, R&B and Soul pioneer Jackie Wilson…the list goes on.

This makes me think that I would have wanted to live in that neighbourhood where every street corner was bouncin’ with happy, sexy beats and every stoop in front of every building had a gaggle of pretty girls with really high hair singing in perfect harmony. The thing about it though, is, this was the late fifties and the Brewster Projects weren’t just a treasure trove of musical/business/and marketing talent, it was a reflection of the very real segregation between black and white America.

With a head-strong work ethic (some say Berry Gordy was just as ruthless to his line-up of black artists as white label owners had been to their black artists), Hitsville, USA (the name of the studio/house where Gordy and his writers lived and worked) started churning out hits. The first hit, Barrett Strong’s ‘Money (That’s What I Want)’ made it up to the number 2 spot on the R&B Billboard charts and there was no stopping Motown after that.

- public domain -

In front of Motown Studios, Detroit

An eleven year-old Stevie Wonder got signed. A ten year-old Michael Jackson got signed although Berry Gordy didn’t even want to see the pint-size singer and his brothers because Stevie Wonder’s Mom had been so demanding and turned Berry off of underage artists. His assistant, Suzanne de Passe INSISTED Mr. Gordy see the group of dancing, singing brothers and the rest is, as they say, history.

Not only was the Motown record label the first label ever owned and run by African Americans, it took a revolutionary step when it came to shaping the images of its artists. The driving force behind the look of Motown was the now 85 year old Miss Maxine Powell. She ran a modeling agency in Detroit and was recommended by Berry Gordy’s sister and aspiring model Gwen. Mr. Gordy employed her services and her first challenge was turning a snooty Diana Ross who thought she owned the world because she was Berry Gordy’s girlfriend at the time, into a classy lady - a gracious diva. Miss Maxine Powell’s name still graces an etiquette school in Detroit. Berry Gordy obviously didn't just choose stars when it came to his recording artists. Suzanne De Passe , Berry's assistant , went on to become the first African American woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for writing the script to 'Lady Sings the Blues' a feature film about the life of Billy Holiday...starring none other than Diana Ross.

Motown did more than just provide a launch pad for illustrious careers, it was pivotal in the integration of blacks and whites—even religious divides were bridged by Motown. As the number of top ten hits became too large to ignore, the most popular television show dedicated to the charts, the STILL RUNNING “American Bandstand??, put, for the first time ever, young African American artists in the spotlight and African American young people in the live studio audience. The audience were encouraged to dance to the music being presented and suddenly America had images of black and white teenagers dancing with each other. It may sound ridiculous now but this was heart-attack-evoking stuff for some folks back in the late fifties and early sixties in the United States. Motown didn’t want to become a ‘Cause Label’ but it certainly had a major impact on the American civil rights movement.

The Commodores, The Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, Rick James, Gladys Knight & The Pips, Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, Lionel Richie, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, The Supremes, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, and more recently: Queen Latifah, Erykah Badu, India.Arie.... not a bad line-up for a label that was started with 800 dollars borrowed from family members.

Detroit may be shutting down right now as the financial crisis cripples the American auto industry but Motown---Motown will truly live and shine forever.

This Saturday's Reality Check

"Mercy Mercy Me- 50 Years of Motown" , this Saturday, on FM4’s Reality Check, as of 12 midday.

Get the podcast of the whole program after the show.