Berry Gordy: An $800 Family Loan, Hitsville USA and the MCA Sale

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Berry Gordy's first business, the 3-D Record Mart in Detroit, failed because he stocked the jazz he loved while customers wanted blues and R&B. He then wrote for Jackie Wilson, including Reet Petite, and produced over a hundred sides between 1957 and 1958, but had to lease recordings such as Smokey Robinson's group's 1958 single to End Records and United Artists. In 1958 he wrote Come to Me for Marv Johnson and, with an $800 loan from the family's Ber-Berry Co-op savings fund, launched Tamla Records in January 1959 after the name Tammy proved taken.

In mid 1959 he bought a former photography studio at 2648 West Grand Boulevard, put the studio and office downstairs and his family upstairs, and painted Hitsville USA on the front. He added the publisher Jobete, ran sessions up to 22 hours a day with the Funk Brothers, and held Friday quality control meetings where a record had to rival that week's top five pop singles. Between 1960 and 1969 Motown placed 79 songs in the Hot 100 top 10. Royalty disputes drove out Holland-Dozier-Holland, the company moved to Los Angeles in 1972 to make films like Lady Sings the Blues and Mahogany, and in 1988 Gordy sold Motown Records to MCA for $61 million.

Gordy met the manager Al Green, not the soul singer, at the Flame Show Bar.
Gordy's quality control meetings initially rejected I Heard It Through the Grapevine.
Maxine Powell taught artists poise and grooming, and Cholly Atkins handled choreography.
Smokey Robinson recalled segregated Southern audiences ending shows dancing together.
Motown marketed itself as the Sound of Young America instead of race records.

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