MOTOWN TURNS 50

The party is far from over

From Taylor Swift to Justin Timberlake, the influence of Motown is still felt.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

On Jan. 12, 1959, Elvis Presley was in the Army. The Beatles were a little-known group called The Quarrymen casting about for gigs in Liverpool. The nascent rock ’n’ roll world was a few weeks away from “the day the music died” — when a single-engine plane crash claimed the lives of Buddy Holly, J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson and Ritchie Valens.

It’s also the day a boxer, assembly line worker and songwriter named Berry Gordy Jr. used an $800 family loan to start a record company in Detroit.

Fifty years later, Motown Records Corp. and its stable of largely black artists have become synonymous with the musical, social and cultural fabric of America. The company spawned household names, signature grooves and anthems for the boulevard and bedroom alike that transcended geography and race.

And time.

Motown may be 50 years old, but it isn’t any less relevant with current hitmakers — from Taylor Swift to Coldplay — citing the label’s signature “sound” as an influence.

Would there be a Beyonce or Mariah Carey had Diana Ross, Martha Reeves and Gladys Knight not come first?

How about Kanye West and Justin Timberlake? What would have become of their musical careers had Motown not blazed a trail with the likes of Michael Jackson, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations and The Four Tops?

“There were just so many amazing artists that came through. It was such a surge,” said singer-songwriter Jewel, whose recently released collection of original lullabies includes Motown influences. “And it really informed The Beatles’ melodies. So much of what pop music and popular culture became. I recommend everybody go back and look at those melodies and see where they find them today, because they’re resurfacing and being remixed, basically, into new pop songs.”

From its founding in 1959 to a much-debated move to Los Angeles 13 years later, what has become known as “classic Motown” created a once-in-a-lifetime sound that was local and global, black and white, gritty and gorgeous, commercial and creative, Saturday night and Sunday morning.

“I Heard it Through the Grapevine.” “My Girl.” “The Tears of a Clown.”

Like the two-sided singles the Motown factory churned out 24 hours a day, seven days a week at Studio A inside the Hitsville, U.S.A., building at 2648 West Grand Boulevard, Motown Records in the 1960s stood out from the musical pack — and still does today — because of its ability to tune the tension between two opposing forces.

GETTING STARTED

Gordy worked at a Ford Motor Co. plant and wrote songs when he could, all the while dreaming of owning and running his own record company.

An $800 loan from his family’s savings club allowed him to make that happen.

He had the vision and the seed money, but next Gordy needed the talent — the singers, songwriters and musicians.

He didn’t have far to look.

Detroit alone produced many of the creative wizards who gave Motown its initial burst.

Robinson and the Miracles attended high school together, while Ross and future Supremes Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard grew up in the city’s housing projects.

Gordy plucked from Detroit’s flourishing nightclub scene a group of supremely talented jazz musicians who would become the label’s house band, the Funk Brothers. Strings, winds and brass came from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and other classical outlets.

And the prolific songwriting trio known as Holland-Dozier-Holland — Lamont Dozier and the Holland brothers, Brian and Eddie — also were local hires.

The talent was there. Now what?

Gordy sought to incorporate some of the same principles from the auto factory floor and bring them to bear in the studio on West Grand.

He wanted it to be a place where everybody had a role, but the best ideas would win.

SOUND/RECORDING

Gordy may have been blessed with an unparalleled ability to recognize hits, but many say those great songs probably would’ve been a bit more ordinary if not for Studio A.

It didn’t look like anything special — certainly by today’s standards of digitized recording — but the sounds it produced were.

“You didn’t have Pro Tools. It was perfectly imperfect,” said country star Wynonna Judd. “You had a lot of people who were sweaty and tired and who were singing from their toenails. ... If you can’t cop it live, get off the porch.”

A square, smallish room, Studio A was accessed by descending a small flight of stairs. Its below-ground standing earned it the nickname “The Snake Pit.”

There, artists, writers, producers, engineers — anybody associated with music-making — gathered to record.

For 13 years, nearly every Motown hit was cut in Studio A and the adjacent control room.

SOCIAL CHANGE/RACE

When Motown was born, as Robinson tells it, songs produced by African-American artists automatically were categorized as R&B, while a similar sound coming from a white artist would have been classified as pop.

But Gordy would have none of it. He set out to make music for all people, not “black music for black people” as had been the standard. While certain African-American artists had found a wider audience in the jazz and early rock-and-roll eras, Gordy took it a step further by pushing a sound that gained universal appeal and helped break down racial barriers in music.

His belief was that quality music would find its way into the ears of all, regardless of race.

“I think that’s why it was so successful as a social tool, because it wasn’t race-specific,” pop singer-songwriter Gavin DeGraw said. “It was just great music.

“And it allowed people to look past those typical lines. ... People could hear music like that in a time when people were looking at each other strangely, wondering what their motivations were, and they could go: ‘Hey man, OK, no one’s holding a grudge. It just sounds good. Let’s enjoy ourselves.”’

For R&B singer Anita Baker, Motown’s barrier-busting ways hit home.

“I remember ‘The Ed Sullivan Show.’ ... I’m a little kid. Every Sunday, Ed Sullivan comes on. And you get to see all of these artists from around the world. But Diana Ross and The Supremes come on. And I saw myself. Do you understand? I saw me,” she said. “I saw a little black girl. ... I saw myself in a way I had never seen it before.”

Motown billed itself as the “sound of young America,” and it was that demographic that found itself at the center of the growing civil rights movement. Rosa Parks was arrested in Alabama a few years before Motown’s founding, but the movement gained steam at the same time Motown did.

“Back in the ’60s, when we were weren’t allowed to do or go certain places, our music crept into people’s homes ... into their bathrooms, their bedrooms, their living rooms, their kitchens, their cars,” Abdul “Duke” Fakir said. (Fakir is the lone surviving original member of The Four Tops.) “We spurred marriages and poor little crib babies ... ’cause parents were playing (our) music. ... That’s how our legacy is going to be carried on.”

LEGACY

Motown was groundbreaking in many ways — from its signature sound and lengthy list of high-profile artists to the unique way it created and recorded music — but what’s harder to pin down is what’s kept the sound alive all these years.

“You hear (Motown) in almost everything,” said Wilson, one-third of The Supremes. “I think Motown music, the Motown sound, is the model, the template that people use today in the music. And yes, you can hear it.”

Not only did Motown bridge racial and generational gaps, but it also succeeded in crossing cultures.

Beatles manager Brian Epstein promoted Motown revues in the United Kingdom, which were popular with fans and stars alike.

Fakir recalls being at a party with The Beatles, where the Fab Four peppered The Four Tops with questions about how they sang their harmonies and achieved other elements of their sound.

Motown even penetrated the Iron Curtain.

“I was in Russia some years ago before the walls came down. And we couldn’t hardly get into Russia at that time — the Cold War,” said the Rev. Jesse Jackson. “All night long they played The Supremes, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson. So the joy of Motown has been infectious around the world.”

CODA

Another global sensation, the late Michael Jackson, also got his start at Motown as a member of The Jackson 5.

Gordy, at Jackson’s memorial service in July, talked about the 10-year-old prodigy he signed, calling him “the greatest entertainer that ever lived.”

Jackson and his brothers became instant teen sensations, but his stratospheric success came post-Motown in his adult years; he and his brothers left the label in the mid-1970s.

The Jackson 5 were one of the first acts to come up as Motown left Detroit for Los Angeles in the early 1970s. Most agree Motown’s own California adventure has had its moments, but they don’t match what happened in its hometown.

The Jackson 5, Gaye, Robinson, Ross and Wonder made the transition to L.A. and had chart-topping success, as did acts ranging from The Commodores to Rick James. Despite the plentiful hits among them, the sound was being challenged by newer grooves, and Motown lacked the deep roster it once had.

But by 1988, Gordy was ready to move on, selling Motown Records to MCA and a private equity firm. It was sold to PolyGram in the 1990s and now is held by Universal, where current acts include Lil’ Wayne, Erykah Badu and Nelly.

Regardless of its present physical location, Motown is a Detroit creation, and that struggling Midwestern metropolis always will identify itself with the music.

“I’m glad they started in Detroit, and I hope that given the troubles they’ve got in Detroit now, I hope they’ll find some new version of Motown — maybe in clean energy or something — and 50 years from now somebody will be interviewed about that because Detroit gave America a great gift there,” Clinton said.

“You can’t ever know why something becomes timeless, whether it’s the Jacksons, anybody. Beethoven — we don’t know,” said Leonard Slatkin, music director of the Detroit Symphony.

“Maybe it’s a simple thing: It’s infectious. ... Something about this music — I don’t think of as being from the ’60s or ’70s anymore when I listen to it. It seems very fresh and new.”

The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.