Founded at 2648 Grand West Boulevard, Detroit in 1959 by songwriter and entrepreneur Berry Gordy Jnr., Motown produced a distinctive soul-pop sound with gospel inflections aimed at the kids of both the white and an emerging black middle class, under a variety of labels, the most well-known of which was the r&b set-up Tamla.
Gordy's business acumen and ambition, developed during his time as a Ford assembly-line worker, turned the label into a hit machine. His writing and production team of long-time friend and collaborator Smokey Robinson, producer / songwriter Norman Whitfield, and the legendary Holland-Dozier-Holland partnership churned out a seemingly endless supply of polished pop, backed by the now also legendary house band the Funk Brothers. Motown capitalised on an early 1960's girl group craze which it had to some extent itself created, the most famous of which was of course The Supremes.
Fortunes began to decline in 1967 with the departure of Holland-Dozier-Holland and the 1971 move to Hollywood to diversify into movies and musicals. Although the label managed to retain outstanding talents like Marvin Gaye, The Isley Brothers, The Jackson 5 and the prodigous Stevie Wonder it continued to diminish in importance until Gordy sold it to MCA in 1988.

{back to rock & roll}      {back to guide}