At his inauguration address, Barack Obama was riffing about “liberty and creed”. He noted how he, as “a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served in a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a sacred oath”.
Less than 60 years ago also, the people behind arguably the best body of popular music ever recorded were being faced with the same sort of prejudice but triumphed. But for the Tamla Motown record label, that triumph came with a price – and a number of compromises.
The label Berry Gordy set up in Detroit in 1959 is putting out all sorts of compilations to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Today, the label may have only a largely symbolic presence under the Universal Music Group umbrella but during the 1960s and 1970s it was (as its in-house studio was called) “Hitsville USA”. Nurturing the careers of Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye et al, Motown, necessarily, had to be about more than just the music.
Only 10 years before Motown’s formation, there was an apartheid- style listing on the Billboard charts for “Race Music” – music composed and performed by black people. Radio airplay was segregated and black artists of the time were managed and published and released by an overwhelmingly white record industry.
Gordy was the first black boss of a commercially significant label. Never to be confused with a political radical, he took a tactical approach to breaking the musical colour bar in the US. Gordy did not want to confine himself to black radio stations or the black touring circuit – Motown was all about pop music with a mass appeal. The only way he could get white radio to play Motown songs was to hire an all-white sales and marketing force.
It was similar in the case of single and album covers – Gordy put a picture of a white couple on the cover of an Isley Brothers album and, in the early days, would never put a photograph of the artist on the sleeve.
But Gordy faced an even bigger problem when it came to touring. Despite all the civil-rights ferment in the US of the 1960s, the music industry retained differing white and black music venues. When a Detroit music venue informed him that they didn’t book “race music” acts, Gordy had to buy the building to get a live platform for his acts.
Slowly he got Motown artists into Las Vegas ballrooms and on to The Ed Sullivan Show. But he had to sacrifice (whether willingly or unwillingly) most aspects of their "blackness" to further his pop cause. Gordy felt that white Americans held a less than positive view of black musicians and all his artists were sternly lectured about how they should act and talk while on public view – they were to be ambassadors for black music crossing over to the white mainstream. While elsewhere the message may have been "black power", Motown artists were to be entertainers.
Gordy even went as far as to refuse to release an album by one of his most prized signings – Marvin Gaye. In 1971, Gaye recorded What's Going On, an eloquent expression of the black experience in the US. For many, What's Going Onremains the best album ever released. Gordy, though, was aghast at the socio-political nature of the lyrics. He eventually gave in – figuring that the album's distinctly non-Motown sound would be a resounding flop.
For many of Motown’s artists Gordy’s stipulations were a necessary sacrifice. Rather than raging at the music colour bar, he set about dismantling it brick by brick. “Race music” became either “rhythm and blues” and/or “soul” and all the old divisions collapsed. Just like Barack Obama, Motown had not just the correct strategy but also the content to back it up.
bboyd@irishtimes.com
Playlist Plus: Motown 50th Anniversary box set is out now
