Part 1: Hitsville USA
“I wanted songs for the whites, blacks, the Jews, Gentiles, the cops and the robbers… I wanted everybody to enjoy my music,”
In 1959 Music was different. Segregated. White and black danced in different halls, ate in different restaurants and music was no different. A record label that became a sound and even changed America’s mind set. The birth child of a frustrated 29 year old singer songwriter from Detroit, Michigan. Berry Gordy Jr, had a vision, music for everyone and he knew how he’d do it, he’d start his own record label.
A $800 loan from family meant he could put a deposit on a two story building nestled between a funeral home and beauty salon in a run down suburb of Detroit, this humble property would become the birthplace of 110 top ten hits between 1961 and 1971, Gordy Jr christened it ‘Hitsville USA”
His first label was ‘Tamla” which was soon incorporated into “Tamla Motown” (Motown being a mixture of Motor Town, the nickname for Detroit at the time) but not before they scored their first hit with The Miracles “Shop around” which hit the billboard 100 at number 2 and was their first single to sell a million copies .
(Berry Gordy 2016)
“I wanted to have a kid off the street walk in one door unknown and come out another door a star”
Using his previous work experience in a car manufacturing plant, Gordy envisioned an assembly line of his own, not parts or cars but turning people into stars. He told the Guardian in 2016 ‘I wanted to have a kid off the street walk in one door unknown and come out another door a star, like an assembly line; that was my dream. My family said, that’s stupid. Those are cars. You can’t do that with human beings. I said, well it’s the same thing – the artists come in and you have one group writing the songs and producing them, then somebody else works on their stage performance and so on. People would say, well, that’s never been done before. Well, maybe that’s the reason we should do it!’. He would create his star assembly line by hiring the best backing band he could find. The funk brothers although uncredited were the backbeat of Motown, huddled together in small converted garage, a studio so small and hot it was nicknamed the ‘Snake pit’. The sound created by this group of incredibly talented musicians would play on more number 1 hits than The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys combined. The studio being so small amplifiers not being used plugging directly into the mixing desk giving them a more authentic and direct sound.
Motown had the studio, they had the musicians and now they needed the songs. Enter Lamont Dozier and brothers Brian and Eddie Holland. All three born in Detroit all already knew Berry Gordy Jr, Eddie Holland’s 1961 ‘Jamie’ being a top 30 hit for Motown and brother Brian co wrote the number 1 ‘Please mr postman’ for The Marvelettes (which would be later covered by the Beatles) while Lamont Dozier had was an artist in his own right and had released records through Gordy’s sisters label ‘ANNA’. The trio started writing songs in 1962 and became an integral part of the Motown assembly-line, writing music was a job and was treated like one. More like the Tin Pan Alley songwriters of years before they turned up to ‘hitsville’ for 9am, wrote and wrote until they had a hit.
They were prolific. In 1963 a year after they came together they wrote and produced Martha Reeves and the vandellas hit ‘Heatwave’, Marvin Gaye’s ‘Can I get a witness’ before they created history. The Supreme’s 1964 hit ‘Where did our love go’ went to top of the billboard charts, this alone doesn’t seem too exciting but it would be the first of six successive number 1 singles. A feat that matched the ability of the songwriters and producers that was the heart of Motown. 25 number 1 singles in 10 years. Even the songs not considered hits at the time ended up becoming northern soul anthems years later. In 1967 a dispute over royalties and getting a fair share of the profits of Motown put them on a collision course for Berry Gordy Jr who countersued the trio for breach of contract, this may have soured the once glorious relationship between the parties who’d successfully changed peoples minds about music. They made music for everyone and everyone listened.
The final piece of the jigsaw that Gordy needed. The last part to his production line and the most important to his vision. He needed genuine stars and he found them.
Part 2 of Motown will investigate the artists that made Motown and America come together.
