MUSIC HISTORY LESSON
Each month, a mini lesson in music history.
WHAT IS THE MOTOWN SOUND?
by Jinjer Hundley
Once upon a time, a young Berry Gordy, Jr., wrote a few ditties for Jackie Wilson.
Impressed with his own talent, Berry decided to produce the songs as well. So, he bought
himself a two-family home in Detroit, and after converting the downstairs into a record
company office, he hung up a sign that read "Hitsville USA, The Sound of Young
America" and set up shop.
Among the eager young hopefuls who knocked on the doors of The Motown Record Corporation
from 1959-1972 were Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Diana Ross & The Supremes,
Mary Wells, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Little Stevie Wonder, The Four Tops, The
Marvelettes, and Martha and The Vandellas.
To create the "Motown Sound," Gordy recruited the most technically adept jazz
musicians he could find to venture down into "the snakepit" (as the Motown
recording studio was called) to play simple pop tunes characterized by tambourine, string,
horns, carefully arranged harmonies, and gospel-style call and response vocals. Although
they were never credited on the records, the bands would later be known as The Funk
Brothers and The Joe Hunter Band.
From 1964 to 1967, Motown had 14 number one pop singles, 20 number one singles on the
R&B charts, forty six Top Fifteen pop singles and seventy-five other Top 15 R&B
singles. In 1966, 75% of Motown's releases made the charts.
Was there was a method to Gordy's madness? Yes: CONSISTENCY. Gordy stuck with his key
songwriters and producers, Smokey Robinson and Holland-Dozier-Holland. Motown artists were
each assigned to a specific team of producers, and each artist’s team worked on every
recording by that particular artist. Some of the producers were also recording artists:
Smokey Robinson produced Mary Wells, and the Temptations produced the Miracles.
The heyday came to an end when Gordy took a fancy to producing movies and television shows
and packed up and moved everything West.
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