That Motown Sound

Music has been an integral part of American history; from African spirituals to church hymns. There are so many genres of music around today. One of those musical genres is Motown. Music from Motown tell a story - told through the lyrics and the score. Motown changed the world’s music, gave African-Americans the chance to prove that they had great musical skills, and influenced our music today.

Berry Gordy Jr. was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1929 to middle-income parents. Gordy had dropped out of high school after his junior year. He had gotten drafted into the Army in 1951 to fight the Korean War. He created Motown in Detroit, Michigan with an $800 loan from his family. Gordy was a former boxer and an automobile worker before he created Motown (was called Tamla Records) out of his house. Gordy was a songwriter also, he wrote songs for Smokey Robinson, Jackie Wilson and Marv Johnson for 10 years before to Motown’s inception. Berry Gordy met Smokey Robinson in 1959 when Robinson was in high school and Gordy recorded Robinson’s group ,The Miracles, and voilà, Motown was born.

Motown’s first #1 hit was “Please Mr. Postman” by the Marvelettes in 1961. The song stayed on the Top Ten charts for 1 week, which was typical for this time period. Gordy, then signed Mary Wells to his flourishing music label. Mary Wells has a string of pop songs that reached on the Top Ten charts. The Distants were signed to his label in 1961 but you might recognize them as The Temptations. Also in 1961, Gordy signed Marvin Gaye, whose most famous song was Let’s Get It On. Gordy signed many artists like The Supremes, The Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, Jimmy and David Ruffin, Gladys Knight and the Pips, The Commodores and The Jackson 5.

Motown made stri...

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... recognize the impact because acts were going all over the world at that time. I recognized the bridges that we crossed, the racial problems and the barriers that we broke down with music. I recognized that because I lived it. I would come to the South in the early days of Motown and the audiences would be segregated. Then they started to get the Motown music and we would go back and the audiences were integrated and the kids were dancing together and holding hands.”

Motown paved the way for future artists to explore themselves. It helped created the grounds of a great music and cultural integration in the 1970’s to now and hopefully forever. Hip Hop’s arrival was credit to Motown triumphs in the musical world. Through the mixing of percussion and the rhythm of the drumbeats of funk and disco, hip hop revealed the opposition to social inequality and discrimination