Back in the sixties and seventies, we didn’t have MP3 players, cable television or Youtube but we did have Motown. If I had to use one word to describe Motown it would be ‘original’. My parents' generation swayed to the tunes of Nat King Cole, Jackie Wilson, The Dells, Chuck Berry, and The Platters. I grew up in a house with two brothers and our Cousin Herb.
The record players back then were called Hi-fi’s back then. Our high-fidelity stereo sat on a stand in the living room and under no circumstances were we allowed to touch it. The fastest way for my parents to clear the room was to play Fats Domino’s “Blueberry Hill” or “Tutti Frutti” by Little Richard, before half the song was over we were out. One day seemingly out of the ether came this company named Motown.
I knew that cars came from Detroit but until I looked at a map I had no idea where Detroit was located in relation to Philly. Growing up we listened to three radio stations, two played R&B/Soul primarily from black artists and the third was KYW a news and weather station because we needed to know if there was going to be enough snow to close the schools.
One day Little Richard and Jackie Wilson were gone, suddenly we were inundated with brand new music that kept coming. Hits like, “My Girl”, “Get Ready”, “Shop Around”, “Stubborn Kind of Fellow” and “Quicksand”. Suddenly all of these songs were flooding the airways of these two small stations.
Two Music Worlds
When I was 13 my parents moved us to what was considered a nicer neighborhood but there was one big drawback. The two black radio stations were considered daytime-only stations by the FCC which meant they had to cut their power at dusk. By moving further away from the signals we were only able to get white stations after around 5 in the winter and 7 in the summer. For me, it was a damn near traumatic experience. Try going from “My Girl” and “Ain't Too Proud to Beg” to The Beach Boys’ “I Get Around” and “Surfer Girl”, yep, see what I mean?
For some reason, during that time, white guys loved singing about their cars. “Little Deuce Coupe”, “Fun Fun Fun” (‘till daddy takes the T Bird away), and “409” a song about a Chevy, yes I had to look it up. There were also lots of songs about beaches and beach parties. The closest beach to us was Atlantic City roughly 90 miles away. There was no T-Bird for my daddy to take away. His mode of transportation was the 79 trolly which took him to work at 5:30 every morning.
Our outdoor family fun activities consisted mostly of cookouts where there were lots of trees and grass but not one grain of sand.
The Friends I Never Met
As a pre-teen, teen and young adult the music of Motown became an intricate part of my life, it was always there. Block parties, house parties, graduation parties, birthday parties, club socials, picnics (we call them cookouts now) weddings, wakes, I think you get the picture. I had no idea of who Berry Gordy was until I began reading stories about him and his company in Jet magazine. I was intrigued. He was an anomaly, a black man starting and running a successful business with black talent back in the sixties was rare. Our faces were on pancakes and rice boxes but we didn’t own the companies.
I have never met Berry Gordy, Smokey Robinson, Norman Whitfield, Lamont Dozier, Brian, and Eddie Holland but I know them through the hundreds of songs they wrote and produced. I could and did relate to them growing up. “Ask the Lonely” was an early hit by the Four Tops. Levi didn’t just sing the song, at some point in his life those lyrics must have had real meaning to him. Not only did he go to that cold dark place he drew from that pain when he sang the song. If you were not careful you could find yourself being pulled into that sad period of your life whenever you listened to that song while sitting alone.
House Parties
There was nothing quite like going to a house party in the hood back in the ’60s and ’70s. The three main components were (not in any particular order) a blue light, a basement full of excited teenagers, and music which was usually at least 50 percent Motown songs and half of those were slow drag records. The Miracles’ “Ooo Baby Baby” or The Temptations’ “What Love Has Joined Together” were two of the many favorite slow dance records back then.
Fortunately for the attendees there was little ventilation and lots of heat in the basement which meant less clothing. House parties - a place where relationships were made, shot down, and sometimes broken. Money was scarce so having a collection of recent Motown hits was rare.
Friends were reluctant to lend out those little black 45 rpm disks for fear they would be left accidentally on a radiator to melt, sat-on or scratched.
If you had the right songs you were guaranteed an invite to whoever was having a party just make sure you brought your recent record collection. Here are a few of the lyrics from “What Love Has Joined Together”
'Cause I love you (I love you), oh I love you from the bottom of my heart
What love has joined together, what love has joined together
Can nobody take it apart
It would be easier to take the cold from the snow or the heat from fire
Then for anyone to take my love from you 'cause you're my heart's desire
I really love you (I love you), oh I love you from the bottom of my heart
What love has joined together, what love has joined together
Can nobody take it apart
Summer Hits
Berry Gordy not only knew how to make hit records, but part of his strategy was also to know when to release songs. Every spring you could be sure that a slew of new songs would hit the airwaves. My friends and I would get summer jobs. When we got paid we headed for the record store to buy the newest hits. While Frankie Avalon fans were dancing to Beach Blanket Bingo we were literally dancing in the streets.
Year after year Martha and the Vandellas cranked out the hits. Quicksand and Heatwave 1963, Dancing in the Street 1964, Nowhere to Run 1965 and Jimmy Mack 1966 all hit dance records. Elvis can have his clambake give me a good old fashion block party with some kool-aid and fried chicken.
We weren't just dancing in the streets we were also dancing in the park. On the 4th of July weekend and Labor Day you would find our family along with thousands more across the country in the park. Back then we didn’t have the technology to bring a record player or a sound system to the park but there was always at least one radio and it was always set to WDAS one of the two black stations.
On warm summer nights back on the block we listen to music, mostly Motown songs. “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch”, “Same Old Song”, “Baby Love”, “Come See About Me”, “Hitchhike”, “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” and “Do You Love Me” by the Contours. A lot of the songs were relatable, “Can You Love a Poorboy” written by Ivy Jo Hunter and Stevie Wonder, and “There Will Come a Day” both sung by the Miracles come to mind. “(Love Makes Me Do Foolish Things)” Full Stop! The title of this song by Martha and the Vandellas says it all. Every teenager who didn’t grow up in a monastery understood that song without having to hear the lyrics. No Radio, No Problem
When I was a child everybody sang, the old women sang or hummed gospel tunes, mothers would sing lullabies to get the babies to go to sleep and the winos in the alley would harmonize or at least try to after downing a bottle or two of Tiger Rose or Thunderbird. My generation was no exception minus the Thunderbird, we did have a challenge. While the older folks pretty much stuck to the old standards, songs that had been around for decades Motown and later other companies like Philly International came out with new songs on a regular basis.
In the ’50s and ’60s if you could afford it you brought a little, cheap, portable radio called a transistor. They came from China, the quality was poor and the sound was sub-par. In most cases, if you were lucky they would last a year. The point is that if you wanted music and you didn’t have access to a radio or record player you sang.
In order to sing you needed to know the words. Sometimes we would spend hours crouched over a speaker with pencil and paper trying to copy the words to our favorite artist records. Getting the words right to a song was no easy task especially with cheap speakers and a band like the Funk Brothers playing in the background. Eventually like the winos at the corner alley we were able to sing our favorites.
The Secret is Out
Gordy’s music territory was expanding before Stevie Wonder sang Happy Birthday Motown released a slew of Christmas albums. Thank God! I don’t think I could have survived another Christmas of hearing Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters version of White Christmas.
Don’t get me wrong, it sounded cool for the first 10 times but by the time Christmas was over I was hearing it in my sleep.
Seemingly from out of nowhere, Motown artists were everywhere. Late-night talk shows, Dick Clark’s American Bandstand and I will never forget Soul Train on Saturday mornings. The Supremes appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show more than a dozen times. In the late 60’s I remember watching a special with the Supremes and Temptations called TBC in prime time.
Motown had gone from a handful of black radio stations to England and beyond. When I got my first car and went to the drive-in, they would show like three B movies before you got to the main feature. Partway through this poorly shot grainy motorcycle movie imagine my surprise to see Marvin Gaye.
The next day, I told my friends who promptly burst into laughter and told me I must have been mistaken. There was no internet back then but you guessed it, I later looked it up. The movie was “Chrome and Hot Leather” and Marvin did have a role in the picture. Through all of those mostly fun years growing up you heard or read tidbits about the singers and the songs that got you through both the good times and the bad but there was always that missing element. The how?
How did Berry Gordy find these people? How did they make all of those hits in such a short period of time and who were they? I love a good mystery, in fact, I like them so much that I created the Alexander Steele Murder Mystery Series but that’s a story for another time.
My Sixty Year Journey
People have bucket lists. A few years ago after watching the documentary, “Standing in the Shadow of Motown”, I wrote on my Facebook page that I didn’t have a list, all I wanted to do was to go to Studio A. I wanted to walk up those steps and through those doors, to see and stand in the same room where it all happened. Two years later for my birthday my wife, daughter, son and son-in-law and I made the trip to Detroit.
We were told that a week earlier Jay Z and Beyonce had been there. People from all over the world have visited the house that Berry built. It was as if I had come full circle. You are given a guided tour but you are also shown a short movie about Motown’s early years.
This was it, after all these years I finally got to go to the place where all of those hits were created. So many record companies had failed but Motown was different. Gladys Knight and the Pips made “I Heard it Through the Grapevine”, a hit then Marvin Gaye sang the same song in the same studio and made it an even bigger hit.
“Who’s Lovin’ You” written by Smokey Robinson and sung by the Miracles back in 1961 was one of their first hits, sorry Michael Jackson fans, the Jackson 5 did not record it until much later.
Motown became an empire, a juggernaut. I started my story by describing Motown as original. If I were to choose a word to describe Mr. Gordy’s stable of exceptional artists and writers, that word would be ‘determination’.
As far as I am cornered one of the biggest reasons for the success of the individuals in the company was their work ethic. Martha Reeves from Martha and the Vandellas had been singing in nightclubs but took a secretary job in order to get her foot in the door at Motown. Songwriter Norman Whitfield also started at Motown as a secretary. The Supremes had 5 flops before finally having a hit. Berry Gordy had a failed record store.
The biggest mystery was solved when I learned that Motown was always open. It all made sense now. Keeping the studio open 24/7 was the only way all of that music could come from one place. Mr. Gordy not only worked there he lived upstairs. I recently watched a special with Berry Gordy and Smokey called “The Making of Motown”. It along with the book my son brought me as a birthday gift filled in more of the missing parts. The Soundtrack to my Early Years now has an ending.
Thank you, Mr. Berry Gordy
Lawrence Johnson Sr.
“Just because a man lacks the use of his eyes doesn't mean he lacks vision.”
Stevie Wonder
https://www.motownmuseum.org
