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Berry Gordy, Jr
An Entertianment Profile
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Berry Gordy, Jr.
He loved
music. He just wanted to write songs. His is a
remarkable, unbelievable story, unparallel to anyone's.
He was a high school dropout that later got a GED. After
failing at everything he had done so far in his life,
his passion for music was as bright as it had ever
been. He
was 29 years old. He had been divorced. He felt
abandoned from everything he had known. He moved in with
his sister and wrote songs for locals like Jackie
Wilson.
After receiving his royalty check for $3.19, his
friend Smokey Robinson suggested he start his own
label. He
did. It
would become the most successful black music label in
history. It
was called Motown.
The Supremes
Berry Gordy
Jr. convinced his family to go into their personal
savings to let him borrow $800.00, which was a lot of
money in 1959. With
that, he started Motown.
Every major
current black record label has tried to pattern
themselves after what Berry Gordy Jr. did with
Motown.
There would be no Def Jam, So So Def, Bad Boy,
Death Row, Aftermath and many others without it. On the first
page of Russell Simmon's autobiography, "Life and Def,"
he admits to taking a little from the Motown model to
put into Def
Jam.
Smokey Robinson and The
Miracles
Berry Gordy
Jr took what he had learned from those assembly lines in
Detroit and made
musical history.
In his career at Motown he made stars out of
Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, The
Temptations, The Four Tops, Diana Ross and the Supremes,
Michael Jackson, The Jackson 5, DeBarge, Mary Wells,
Lionel Richie, Rick James and many, many more. Many of them
came to Motown with nothing but a dream. Gordy assembled
a team of people to mold those dreams and their talent
together to make them something special. They came in as
street kids. He polished them up with etiquette,
choreography and speech classes. He then recorded
them with his house band, The Funk Brothers. At the end
of the week, there was an evaluation meeting where
numerous members of his staff would vote on the week's
best records.
Competition was thick. If your record wasn't
voted in, then you had to either go back to the drawing
board and try something new or go back and tweak it for
next weeks meeting.
Stevie
Wonder
Berry was very
involved with the artist. He helped write
many of the songs, spending hours in the studio with
Smokey Robinson, one of the labels most prolific
writers, creating what would become classics. He wrote and
produced many classics, some with The Corporation, which
comprised of he, Freddie Parren, Alphonzo Mizell and
Deke Richards.
One of their most successful collaborations was
with The Jackson 5. They wrote and
produced the first four number one hits for the talented
group of boys ("I Want You Back," "ABC," "The Love You
Save," and "I'll Be There").
The Jackson
5
From there,
Motown got involved in Film. They would
produce several hit movies, including, "Lady Sings the
Blues," "Mahogany," "The Wiz," "Bingo Long and the
Traveling All stars," and later, "The last
Dragon."
But things
started to turn for Berry. According to his
autobiography, "To Be Loved," in the 70's as his artist
popularity grew, other labels began to bid for
them. He
states, "I would not always pay what it would take for
them to stay.
That may have been a mistake." The
Jackson 5 left,
Gladys Knight left, The Four Tops left and eventually
Diana Ross would leave as well.
The Temptations
What had
started out being his love had become just a job. And even worse,
the company had begun to lose money. Berry Gordy
wanted out. In 1988, he sold Motown to MCA for 61
million dollars.
What he had started with 800 dollars had made him
quite a profit.
He says in his autobiography, "The total value
was not only the money, but saving the company and
keeping the legacy intact. This was a body
of work that was an institution. I had to put it
in the right hands at the right time when I was losing a
fortune."
This year
made Motown's 50th anniversary. Berry Gordy has
seen greats like Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, Rick
James most of the Temptations and many others that had
become unbelievable success stories pass. But most
importantly, he’s seen many of them make lots of money
before their death. He was a major
reason for it.
Today Motown
has artist on its roster like
Ashanti, Akon,
Erikah Badu, Nelly and Busta Rhymes. Stevie Wonder
never left the label and still puts out CD’s from time
to time.
Berry Gordy Jr. definitely created and
institution that will last forever. Smokey Robinson
said at a Motown 50th anniversary celebration a few
months ago, "Nothing like Motown had ever happened
before it, nothing like Motown has happened since and I
doubt that it will... with all those caliber of artist
making hits from back to back to back."
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Updated Wednesday
April 05, 2006 12:40:42
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