Motown’s Gordy set out ‘to get some girls’
TORONTO — If Berry Gordy had fallen in love early in life, he might never have founded the legendary Motown Records.
The illustrious producersongwriter says the hitmaking R&B label that nurtured major acts — from Stevie Wonder to the Temptations and Diana Ross and the Supremes — came out of a “great desire” to find a mate.
“When I started off, I didn’t know that I wanted to be a mogul or a big songwriter or anything — I just wanted to write songs, make some money and get some girls,” says Gordy, who tells his life story in the stage show Motown The Musical, nominated for four Tony Awards. The show opens Sept. 22 at Toronto’s Princess of Wales Theatre.
“In my neighbourhood, that’s all we strived for,” says the 85-year-old Detroit native. “If I had found love right away, my incentive would have been gone.”
Gordy first fell in love with music through his uncle, a classical pianist who made him want to play.
“I tried it out and failed miserably,” he says. “But as I was trying it out, I could hear melodies in my head and I started writing songs of my own.”
After being drafted to serve in the Korean War, Gordy briefly ran a record store and worked on the assembly line at Ford.
Then he met singer Jackie Wilson and co-wrote songs for him, which eventually led to producing and working with the Miracles.
In 1959, he borrowed $800 from his family to start his record company.
To create his stars, Gordy applied the same assembly-line approach he had learned at the car plant: Talent that came in the door had to learn not just how to dance and sing, but also how to walk, talk and represent themselves.
“I wanted (the label) to a be a place where kids could walk in one day an unknown and come out another door a star,” Gordy says.
Gordy reflects his life journey in his songwriting.
When he was girl-crazy, he wrote Do You Love Me? When he started getting girls he realized his next goal was money.
“So then I wrote a song called Money, That’s What I Want, and that became a big hit,” he says. “So from that, I realized that telling the truth about yourself and making it entertaining is really part of the key, if you do it in an artistic way.”