Why is berry gordy famous
Toggle navigation. Biography Berry Gordy Jr. Early life Berry Gordy Jr. Enters the music business When Gordy's service in the army ended in , he returned to Detroit and used the money he had saved from his military pay to open a record store called the Three-D Record Mart.
Hits the big time At the suggestion of a friend, teenage singer William "Smokey" Robinson — , Gordy borrowed seven hundred dollars from his father and formed his own company to make and sell records.
Troubles arise By the mids, though, some of the Motown artists had begun to resist Gordy's tight control and began to break up Gordy's "family" of stars. For More Information Davis, Sharon. User Contributions: 1. Ryan Gordon. I aspire to be the new Berry Gordy I loved all the motown hits and I intend on giving the world a taste of the real music that once was.
Today's generation has been robbed of the authentic heartfelt music of the 50s 60s and 70s; we have not had a real serious record label since motown. Jarrod Tillman. Gordy's talents as a songwriter and entrepreneur and his huge contribution to popular music were recognized in Read more: Berry Gordy Jr.
I would like to have the 60 in the fifties records and stuff because I like to know about the history of Motown I want to hear about all the orders and I think made it and how they died. Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic: Name:.
E-mail: Show my email publicly. In , he was included in the Junior Achievement U. S Business Hall of Fame.
He is also the first living person who will receive the honorable Songwriters Hall of Fame pioneer award In June Even in those unwelcoming times for the black people, Berry attempted to spread beyond the radical boundary with music that everyone loved despite color or race.
Motown was responsible for the parade of hits in the s that revolutionized the American popular music. Berry and his Motown achievements remain to this day unchallenged and matchless. An acknowledged masterpiece by one of the great stylists in pop music history. Of the three records — all hits in — is there any doubt that this is the one that has survived with its original intentions and beauty least faded by age?
A superb arrangement and vocal performance. A great record in every respect, but one that deserves inclusion simply because of its title. The Temptations may not have hit as many high spots as some of the others but, song for song, their first Greatest Hits album is more consistently enjoyable than any of the others.
David Ruffin managed to make every performance memorable in some respect. Like so many other of his admirers, I wish he were still singing with them today. Here he takes two chords and tells the story of his musical persona. Listen to the bass player work out. The higher ranges of the harmony are breathtaking but it is the superb attention to melodic detail throughout that mark it as a classic.
Surely the coupling, of this group with the Motown production staff is one of the most fortuitous events in the recent history of pop music. It is lyrically their finest work, rhythmically stunning although subtly complex, and considered as a performance it as perfect as a record can be and still convey feeling.
Diana Ross never conveyed more than when she sang:. The song expresses a state of mind with such confidence and accuracy that I doubt it has been done better anywhere else, in any other form. It is, in fact, the purest of Motown singles. And if ever an artist expressed herself through production it is on this record: Martha takes everything, the song, the band, the sound, the background singing——and goes for herself.
Through these records we can get a sense of the continuing growth of the company as well as its continuing musical accomplishments.
He was there to start it, there to make it work, and is there now to make it continue. Artists and producers may come and go; Berry Gordy will still be there.
His company has past through ten years of growth and come out of them a giant in every respect. In the decade ahead, it is my personal hope that Motown will keep alive the tradition they upheld so brilliantly in the Sixties: the independent record company.
As an independent they have created a body of work that, for what it is intended to be, is without peer; they have mastered the art of the single.
For me personally they have done more. But after discovering that distributors took a large bite out of his income, Gordy, encouraged by his friend Smokey Robinson , decided to start handling his own national distribution. In , Robinson and his group, the Miracles, sold more than a million copies of "Shop Around," which climbed to No. The next year, the Marvelettes were the first Motown act to hit No. As the company took shape, Gordy brought on talent such as Mary Wells, who would sing the popular "My Guy.
With regular quality control meetings, Gordy made sure that Motown's releases were ready to impress listeners. He also arranged for his performers to learn how to best present themselves both on and off the stage.
The Civil Rights Movement of the s also affected Gordy's work. Not only did he release Martin Luther King Jr. In the s, the Supremes achieved the kind of crossover success Gordy had dreamed of. Their No. Five of Motown's records climbed into the Top 10 on the pop charts in In , the Jackson 5, fronted by a young Michael Jackson , joined the label. It was also during the s that Motown became the largest Black-owned company in America. With its popular dominance, the label was able to integrate its all-white sales department, as it now had the clout to demand that its sales force be accepted across the country.
In , Gordy bought a home in southern California; Motown later officially moved to Los Angeles in Despite budget overruns, the film was a success, garnering five Academy Award nominations.
His interest in movies meant Gordy had less time to pay attention to the music side of Motown. But many of Gordy's established artists were growing restless. Motown's contract terms often didn't favor artists.