Motown Records Guide: Hits and History of The Motown Sound

Motown music is a pop music style associated with Motown Records. In 1959, Berry Gordy Jr founded Motown, originally named Tamla Records. The record label helped define the sound of soul music and popularized the genre in the 1960s. The label cultivated a roster of majority Black singers, songwriters, musicians, and producers who combined impeccable skill, elegant looks, and irresistible pop hooks.

As Gordy built out the label, he recruited artists from Detroit and around the country. Among the artists that helped create the Motown sound were Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Martha Reeves, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Mary Wells, Marvin Gaye, Edwin Starr, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Eddie Holland, and the Jackson Five.

In 1972, Gordy relocated the record company to Los Angeles. This coincided with reduced interest in the short-form, classy pop music that Motown produced, and the label waned in influence. Over time, Motown has been venerated as a hallmark in American pop, soul, and R&B recording.

Berry Gordy Jr. started Motown in January 1959 with a loan from his family. Originally calling his label Tamla Records, Gordy released "Come To Me" by Marv Johnson as his first single. He later changed the label’s name to Motown Records, an allusion to Detroit's nickname as the "Motor City."

• Hitsville USA: Gordy purchased a building on Detroit's West Grand Boulevard to house both a recording studio and a record company office. He erected a sign over its porch reading "Hitsville USA.” Several months later, Gordy founded a sister label for Tamla called Anna Records and scored his first hit, "Money (That's What I Want)," which Barrett Strong sang and Gordy co-wrote.
• Holland-Dozier-Holland hits: Gordy relied on in-house songwriters to churn out many of his label's hits. The most famous was the team of Holland-Dozier-Holland, comprised of brothers Brian and Eddie Holland and their friend Lamont Dozier. The trio wrote hits like "Baby Love," "Stop! In the Name of Love," and "Where Did Our Love Go" for The Supremes. They also penned "Heat Wave" for Martha and the Vandellas, "Baby I Need Your Loving" for The Four Tops, and "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)" for Marvin Gaye. Smokey Robinson was another key in-house composer, writing hits for both himself ("Shop Around," "I Second That Emotion") and others (such as The Temptations’ "My Girl" and "My Guy" for Mary Wells).
• Hit singers of the ‘60s: By the end of the 1960s, one of Motown's biggest stars was Marvin Gaye, who started with popular music hits like "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" before expanding into socially conscious records like "What's Going On." Meanwhile, Gordy fostered new artists with expanded instrumentation. He succeeded with The Jackson 5, whose 1969 hit "I Want You Back" introduced 11-year-old Michael Jackson to the masses.
• A traditional label: From the 1970s and onward, Motown has acted more like a standard record label, without an in-house songwriting and production team. Its most reliable hitmaker in the 1970s and beyond was Stevie Wonder, who joined the label as a child prodigy and remained with it after operations moved to Los Angeles. Other 1970s Motown successes included Rick James, Lionel Richie, and the Commodores.
• Motown today: Today, Universal Music Group owns the label, which offers a roster of contemporary R&B artists.

In addition to being a record label, Motown is a defined style of soul music. Everything about its 1960s heyday, from song length to instrumentation to singers' apparel, was carefully orchestrated to be pieces of a larger whole.

1. 1. The Funk Brothers: Motown Records’s house band were the Funk Brothers, and they provided the backing tracks to the majority of Motown songs. Drummer Benny Benjamin and bassist James Makerson led the rhythm section, and the band inspired legions of rock, pop, and R&B musicians.
2. 2. Heavy backbeat: The Motown sound is famous for its backbeat, which creates a propulsive, highly danceable rhythm. Examples include "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" by The Undisputed Truth (and later covered by The Temptations) and "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder.
3. 3. Short songs written for radio: Signature Motown songs like The Marvelettes' "Please Mr. Postman," Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancing In the Street," and The Four Tops' "Reach Out I'll Be There" were short and pithy, with front-loaded choruses.
4. 4. A clean, polished image: In addition to being a musical perfectionist, Berry Gordy was quite exacting about his singers' appearance. He favored formal clothing, perfectly coiffed hair, and synchronized dance moves. Gordy's early work was on an auto assembly line in Detroit, and he envisioned an "assembly line" process for creating the most alluring pop stars of his era.

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