Berry Gordy, Jr.

• Born: November 28, 1929
• Birthplace: Detroit, Michigan

Record producer and entrepreneur

Berry Gordy, Jr. founded Motown Records, the most successful Black-owned company of 1960s America and one of the most successful record labels in American history. A pioneer of the commercial practice of “crossover,” Gordy also achieved success in the film industry during the 1970s.

Early Life

Berry Gordy, Jr., was born in Detroit on November 28, 1929, the seventh of Berry Gordy, Sr., and Bertha Fuller Gordy’s eight children. Gordy’s parents had relocated to Detroit from Sandersville, Georgia, in 1922, after his father’s store became so profitable that he came to fear for his family’s safety after threats from angry whites.

Gordy’s upbringing was marked by an intense awareness of the importance of the family dynamic, in relation to both personal dealings and business dealings. The Gordy family was closely knit, and his father was a devout believer in Booker T. Washington’s philosophy of self-improvement and economic advancement. All members of the Gordy family were expected to contribute to the various family businesses, which would grow to include a grocery store, a plastering business, a printing shop, and various real estate ventures. The intertwining of family and business would be a consistent theme throughout Gordy’s professional life and a significant basis for the operation and success of Motown Records.

Gordy’s initial ambition was to be a professional boxer. Despite some early success as an amateur, he soon realized he lacked the size to truly make it a career. After a stint in the military, he went to work in his father’s printing shop, during which time his interest in music increased. In 1953, Gordy opened a small jazz record shop called the 3-D Record Mart; the venture failed, but not before Gordy ascertained that most of his clientele seemed more interested in buying rhythm-and-blues music than the jazz records that were his passion. After the closing of 3-D, Gordy took a job at Ford’s Wayne Assembly Plant, an experience that would shape his philosophy toward the music industry at Motown, where hit records were famously produced with the exacting efficiency of an assembly line.

Life’s Work

As the 1950s progressed, Gordy developed an interest in songwriting. In 1958, along with his sister Gwendolyn and fellow collaborator Roquel Davis, Gordy wrote the song “Lonely Teardrops,” which became a number one rhythm-and-blues hit for singer Jackie Wilson and reached number seven on the Billboard pop charts. The song catapulted Wilson to stardom and left Gordy convinced that, when well executed and carefully marketed, African American rhythm-and-blues music could be lucratively sold to White teenagers.

In 1959, using his songwriting royalties and a nine-hundred-dollar family loan, Gordy bought a house at 2648 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit, converting it into a recording studio and christening it “Hitsville U.S.A.” That same year, his nascent label turned out its first hit, Barrett Strong’s “Money (That’s What I Want),” which ultimately reached number twenty-three on the Billboard pop charts. In 1961, the Marvelettes’ “Please Mr. Postman” became Motown Records’ first number one pop single. Gordy’s conviction that Black artists could consistently “cross over” to the White-oriented pop charts was proving to be correct.

As its profile rose, Motown began to attract more and more local talent. Area neighborhoods brought Gordy artists such as Mary Wells, Stevie Wonder, the Miracles, the Vandellas, the Four Tops, the Temptations, and the Supremes. Equally important were the songwriters Gordy brought to Motown, as well as the Funk Brothers house band anchored by legendary bassist James Jamerson. All of this spoke to Gordy’s fastidious attention to detail, efficiency, and quality control: By keeping all aspects of production in-house, he could guarantee listeners a consistent and instantly recognizable brand in the “Motown sound.” By and large, the same musicians played on almost every single; the same teams of songwriters wrote nearly every hit. It was a business strategy that sprang from Gordy’s exacting and controlling nature, although its success was largely attributable to the extraordinary talent at all levels of the Motown operation.

By the mid-1960s, Gordy was presiding over the most successful African American-owned business in America, and Motown Records rivaled the automobile industry as the iconic symbol of Detroit in American culture. In June of 1966, Gordy opened a West Coast office of Motown Records with the intention of expanding into film production. As the 1960s progressed and youth culture became increasingly politicized, Motown found itself scrambling to keep up with trends in popular music. Gordy had long seen political messages in Black music as anathema to crossover sales, but with the success of more politically engaged Black artists such as James Brown and Sly Stone, popular music was changing with the times.

While Motown doggedly maintained its remarkable commercial success—in 1968, Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” became the best-selling single in the company’s history—Gordy’s attentions turned toward Los Angeles, and his relationship with the Detroit-based musical production operation grew increasingly detached. By 1972, Motown had shifted all of its operations to Los Angeles, effectively ending the label’s Detroit era, now widely considered its “golden age.”

In the 1970s, Gordy became romantically involved with singer Diana Ross and directed much of his focus toward promoting her solo career. In 1972, Ross starred as Billie Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues, a film produced by Gordy, and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1975, Gordy produced and directed Mahogany, another Ross vehicle that performed well at the box office. With a few notable exceptions—Ross, Gaye, and Wonder among them—Motown’s domination of the pop charts declined significantly in the 1970s.

In 1988, after seeing the label stagnate for much of the 1980s, Gordy sold his ownership stake in Motown Records to MCA for sixty-one million dollars. In 1998, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Significance

Gordy’s impact on the business of American popular music is virtually incalculable. His belief that White American teenagers would eagerly purchase the music of African Americans—and the conviction and acumen with which he pursued this notion—remade the music industry by bringing Black artists into the mainstream and had a substantial impact on American popular culture in the 1960s. Although his success began to wane in the 1970s, the accomplishments of Gordy and his record label during the 1960s remain undiminished.

Bibliography

Early, Gerald. One Nation Under a Groove: Motown and American Culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. A well-written and highly insightful book-length essay on Motown and its significance to 1960’s American culture.

George, Nelson. Where Did Our Love Go? The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2007. An informative and well-researched account of Motown’s “golden age” written by a preeminent music journalist and critic.

Gordy, Berry. To Be Loved: The Music, the Magic, the Memories of Motown. New York: Warner Books, 1994. Gordy’s autobiography is a highly readable and insightful look into his life and times at Motown.

Posner, Gerald. Motown: Money, Music, Sex, and Power. New York: Random House, 2002. A well-researched historical account of Motown, although one that tends to focus more on interpersonal dynamics and controversial business dealings than on the music itself.

Smith, Suzanne. Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999. A thorough and often fascinating academic history of Motown and its relationship to the city of Detroit in the 1960’s.

Werner, Craig. A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race, and the Soul of America. New York: Plume, 1998. An excellent broad-scope history of the significance of rhythm-and-blues music in the context of 1960’s America, particularly the Civil Rights movement.