The time was right for dancing in the street of Motor City, USA
Detroit in the USA was a city famed for its factories that could churn out seemingly anything.
Stoves, pharmaceuticals and cars were once produced in breathtaking numbers every day.
In the second half of the 20th Century, vinyl – in the form of records – was added to the city’s impressive production history.
Classic record label Motown was founded in Detroit in 1959 and, two years later, on August 21, 1961, they would have their first chart-topping hit in America with the classic Please Mr Postman by The Marvelettes.
The man behind the legendary soul label was Berry Gordy, former boxer and worker on the city’s automobile lines.
The songwriter penned Jackie Wilson’s single Reet Petite which, while not a huge hit in the USA was a top-10 hit in the UK.
The profits from that and a series of other hits would be the money used to set up Motown.
Berry was encouraged to start the business – at a time when black-owned businesses were rare – by a friend. His songwriting pal was Smokey Robinson, front man of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.
The label’s first hit, by The Marvelettes was the teen group’s first foray into a record studio and the track was penned by a friend of the band. On drums was a quiet 22-year-old trying to break into the industry by the name of Marvin Gaye
– a man who would be, in years to come – one of the label’s biggest stars.
The parade of artists that Gordy’s Motown label produced was staggering, and amounted to a Who’s Who of cutting-edge 1960s soul music.
Martha and the Vandellas, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Gladys Knight and the Pips, The Jackson 5 and Stevie Wonder all became hit artists before the 1970s arrived. The label discovered “Little” Stevie Wonder at the age of 11.
Gordy’s philosophy for the label was supposedly based on the car factory line on which he’d toiled only a few years’ previously: make something good, then make something similar, and make it quickly. And it was car stereos that helped give Motown its unique sound – and an edge over its rivals. Motown’s chief engineer, Mike McClain, built a tinny-sounding radio in his studio that was designed to sound akin to a car radio.
This meant Motown’s engineers could hear what the track would sound like to an important audience: those behind the wheel of a car – as well as those listening on transistor radios.
The list of hit tracks is almost too long to mention but include classics like Dancing in the Street, Tracks of My Tears, Where Did Our Love Go, Baby Love, Reach Out, I’ll Be There, Get Ready and Stop! In the Name of Love.
By 1971, Gordy had moved the label to Los Angeles, and music critics mark this as the end of Motown’s most creatively successful period.
However, it did have one last hurrah. The Marvelettes ex-drummer Marvin Gaye released What’s Going On, regarded as one of the most important albums ever.
Its legacy – and the legacy of the label it was released on – meant that when it came to 1960s music, Motown was the real driving force.