Berry Gordy was born in 1929 in Michigan. He and President Jimmy Carter share a great-grandfather. He dropped out of high school to become a professional boxer. His boxing career ended when he was drafted to serve in the Korean War. When he returned from the war, he earned a diploma through a GED.
He went through some short career moves, but music remained his passion. He and his sister had a modest hit song recorded by Jackie Wilson. That led to additional songs which made it to the top 10 on the R&B charts. The profits from songwriting gave him the opportunity to move into record production.
He founded Motown Records. After a couple of misses, his first million-selling record was Shop Around by the Miracles. This was followed by a number of other hits. At first, the Motown sound was associated with race music. But its popularity soon began to place Motown Records on the pop charts.
Berry Gordy had a gift for discovering and nurturing talent. The number of artists that he found and brought to stardom include The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, the Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, and the Jackson 5.
If you listen to any radio station that plays the “golden oldies”, you will hear a Motown recording in just a few minutes. The lasting vibrancy of the Motown sound has shaped American culture. Motown was at its peak when the baby boomer generation was in their teens. In previous times, Americans grew up with music that aligned with their race. What Motown and Berry Gordy did was break the color line on what we listened to and danced to. Berry Gordy blurred the color of music.
Now, over 60 years later, we no longer think of music along racial lines. Concerts are one of the best places to see what a blended society can be. Did Berry Gordy have this in mind when he created Motown Records? When President Obama presented him with the National Medal of Arts, he said this about Berry Gordy: “His unique sound helped shape our Nation’s story”.
Hidden heroes often accomplish much more than they originally intended. The name Berry Gordy is familiar to many of us above a certain age. But we may not have given much thought to how he impacted American society.
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“Motown was about music for all people–white and black, blue and green, cops and the robbers. I was reluctant to have our music alienate anyone.”–Berry Gordy