Berry Gordy Biography

Detroit, located near the Great Lakes, was the biggest city of heavy industry in the 1950s and 1960s. The Big Three automobile companies such as Ford, GM and Chrysler, had their manufacturing plants in Detroit at that time. People called this city as Motown, a compound word of Motor Town. Berry Gordy Jr. came back to Detroit after the Korean War in 1953 and he run a jazz record store with his friends. He was absorbed in blues and bebop and used to write songs as his hobby. Since he was a versatile person, he tried various things in different fields. He was a boxer in fact. But his record store closed its doors and he worked as an auto mechanic to make debt redemption, combined with composition activity. In 1957, he began to come to the front.
He also established Tamla Records at the same time and these two labels shared composers and producers. In those days, payola scandal, offering bribes to radio producers and DJs for more music to be exposed on the radio, was the issue. Payola scandal was a threat to a CEO of a new record label, Berry Gordy, because he needed to search for new talents and actively expose them. In this situation, he run two record labels because he could revive one label even if another label would suffer. When the scandal was even out, he integrated two labels into the Motown Record Corporation when a cohesiveness of labels was
Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross were the stars who could make the vision of the Motown Records as a reality. In 1960s, Marvin Gaye became the key artist of the Motown Records with his hit singles such as “Once Upon A Time” and “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” Marvin Gaye continued to his career and he released a soul album, marked a new era in American pop music history, called “What’s Going On” in May 1971. This album expressed a chronic disease, injustice and pain of the American society in the perspective of a Vietnam War veteran. Marvin Gaye sang the decadence of American society, the crisis of global ecosystems and a single spiritual corruption in sensual and sophisticated ways. In fact, music of the Motown Records was generally about amusement, love and fantasy prior to this album. It was the strength and the limit of the Motown Records at the same time. Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” was an album that surpassed this limit through the musical spirit to world issues. In other words, African American soul music became the music that provided comfort and shelter. This album brought the innovation of African American music and was the first concept album by African American artist. In 2006, the Times magazine selected this album as one of the All-Time 100 Albums. He expressed the essence of the soul in his album “Let’s Get It On” and “Midnight