About the record label

I am so so excited about this series. I know literally every song from every act that was and is still on this label. I will profile songs from the 1960's till now. The songs that i feature will be some of the ones that have touched me in one way or the other. Some i love, some not so much, some are funny, cheesy...its a broad range of emotions evoked by these songs. I will give my thoughts and commentary on the songs and provide some information on the artists/acts. I will also try to make connections to people that have covered or sampled these songs and i ask that readers jog my memory, make corrections, share memories tied to the songs..anything.

Before i launch into the songs, i think some information on the label itself and how it evolved is the right place to start.....So here goes...


Berry Gordy Jr founded Tamla Records with an $800 loan from his family in 1958 in Detroit, Michigan. The name of the company was changed to Motwon Record Corporation in 1960 after Gordy discovered that the name Tamla was originally in use.

It was the first record label owned by an African American to primarily feature African-American artists who achieved crossover success. In the 1960s Motown and its soul-based subsidiaries were the most successful proponents of what came to be known as "The Motown Sound", a style of soul music with a distinct pop influence.

Gordy's first signed act was The Matadors, a group he had written and produced songs for, who changed their name to The Miracles when Tamla signed them. Miracles lead singer Smokey Robinson became the vice president of the company (and later named his daughter "Tamla" and his son "Berry" out of gratitude to Gordy and the label). Many of Gordy's family members, including his father Berry, Sr., brothers Robert and George, and sister Esther, had instrumental roles in the company. By the middle of the decade, Gwen and Anna Gordy (his sisters) had joined the label in administrative positions as well.

Among Tamla's early artists were Mable John, Barrett Strong and (on the Motown label) Mary Wells. In 1960, Gordy launched Motown Records as a sister label. Because of the "Motown" name's association with "Motor City" Detroit, the blanket record company under which both Motown Records and Tamla Records operated was incorporated as "Motown Record Corporation". By the mid-1960s, the label, with the help of songwriters and producers such as Robinson, William "Mickey" Stevenson, Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Norman Whitfield, was a major force in the music industry.

In the 1960s (from 1961 to 1971), Motown had 110 Top 10 hits, and artists such as Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross & The Supremes, The Four Tops and The Jackson 5 were all signed to Motown labels. The company operated several labels in addition to the Tamla and Motown imprints. A third label, which Gordy named after himself, featured The Temptations and Martha and The Vandellas. A fourth, V.I.P., released recordings by The Velevettes and The Spinners, and a fifth, Soul, featured Jr.Walker & the All Stars and Gladys Knoght & The Pips (who were the first act to have been successful before joining Motown).

Motown's music was crafted with the same ear towards pop appeal. The company specialized in a type of soul music it referred to with the trademark "The Motown Sound". The Motown Sound was typified by a number of characteristics: the use of tambourines to accent the back beat, prominent and often melodic electric bass guitar lines, distinctive melodic and chord structures, and a call and response singing style that originated in gospel music. In addition, pop production techniques such as the use of orchestral string sections, charted horn sections, and carefully arranged background vocals were also used. Complex arrangements and elaborate, melismatic vocal riffs were avoided; Motown producers believed steadfastly in the "KISS principle" ("keep it simple, stupid")

Berry Gordy used weekly quality control meetings, held every Friday morning, and veto power to ensure that only the very best material and performances the company came up with would be released. The test was that every new release needed to "fit" into a sequence of the top 5 selling pop singles of the week. As a result, several tracks which later became critical and commercial favorites were initially rejected by Gordy. In several cases, producers would re-work and re-re-work tracks in hopes of eventually getting them approved at a later Friday morning meeting.

Many of Motown's best-known songs, such as all of the early hits for The Supremes, were written by the songwriting trio of Holland-Dozier-Holland (brothers Brian & Eddie Holland and colleague Lamont Dozier). Other important producers and songwriters at Motown's Hitsville USA recording studio and headquarters included Norman Whitfield & Barrett Strong, Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson, Frank Wilson, Motown artists Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, and Gordy himself. Many artists and producers of Motown Records collaborated to produce numerous hit songs, although the process has been described as factory-like. The Hitsville studios remained open and active 22 hours a day, and artists would often be on tour for weeks, come back to Detroit to record as many songs as possible, and then promptly set back out on tour again.

The style created by the Motown musicians was a major influence on several non-Motown artists of the mid-1960s, such as Dusty Springfield.

In addition to the songwriting prowess of the writers and producers, one of the major factors in the widespread appeal of Motown's music was Gordy's practice of using a highly select and tight-knit group of studio musicians, collectively known as "The Funk Brothers", to record the instrumental or "band" tracks of the Motown songs. Much of the Motown Sound came from the use of overdubbed and duplicated instrumentation. Motown songs regularly featured two drummers instead of one (either overdubbed or in unison), as well as three or four guitar lines.

Artist development was a major part of the Motor Town's operations. The acts on the Motown label were fastidiously groomed, dressed and choreographed for live performances. Motown artists were advised that their breakthrough into the white popular music market made them ambassadors for other African American artists seeking broad market acceptance, and that they should think, act, walk and talk like royalty, so as to alter the less-than-dignified image commonly held by white Americans in that era of black musicians. Given that many of the talented young artists had been raised in housing projects and were short on social and dress skills, this Motown department was not only necessary, it created an elegant style of presentation long associated with the label. The artist development department specialized primarily in working with younger, less experienced acts; experienced performers such as Junior M Walker and Marvin Gaye were exempted from artist development classes.

Many of the young artists participated in an annual package tour called the "Motortown Revue", which was popular first on the "chitlin circuit", and later around the world. The tours gave the younger singers a chance to hone their performance and social skills and also to learn from more experienced artists.

Despite losing Holland-Dozier-Holland, Norman Whitfield, and a number of its other hitmakers by 1975, Motown still had a number of successful artists during the late 1970s and 1980s, including Lionel Richie and The Commodores, Rick James, Teena Marie and DeBarge. By the mid-1980s, Motown was losing money, and Berry Gordy sold his ownership in Motown to (MCA) and Boston Ventures in June 1988 for $61 million.

During the 1990s, Motown was home to successful recording artists such as Boyz II Men and Johnny Gill, although the company itself remained in a state of turmoil. By 1998, Motown had added artists like 702, Brian McKnight, India Arie and Erykah Badu to its roster.

Motown's current roster includes India Arie, Erykah Badu, Mya, Kem, Yummy Bingham, Lindsay Lohan, Damian and Stephen Marley, Trick Trick and Nick Cannon.

A huge blockbuster film about motown is due out in the Summer of 2009, directed by F.Gary Gray and starring Beyonce, Nick Cannon, Mariah Carey, Denzel Washington with Forest Whitaker as Barry White and Jamie Foxx as Edwin Starr.