by Berry Gordy
These were just kids out there, making music, making people happy and all of a sudden the real world had shown its ugly face. And I was responsible—I had sent them out there.
I remembered in 1955 how terrified I was when I’d heard about Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old kid from Chicago who was visiting relatives in Mississippi. Dragged from his grandfather’s home, he was beaten unmercifully, lynched and his body thrown in the Tallahatchie River. I couldn’t believe it when I heard that his crime was “thinking” under a white woman’s dress. Thinking?!? The two white men who had killed him were freed.
That had been the first time I clearly put myself in somebody else’s shoes. If they could do that to him, they could do it to me. And now they were. They were shooting at my Motortown Revue bus. I wanted to cancel the tour but Esther, after conferring with Beans and the chaperones, convinced me that it was only an isolated incident.
Three weeks later there was more bad news.
I was jolted from sleep in the middle of the night with news that Beans Bowles and his assistant, Eddie McFarland, had been in an auto accident as the Motortown Revue traveled from Greenville, South Carolina, on the way to Tampa, Florida. Both were critically injured and not expected to live.
The next morning Eddie’s mother, Alice, my sister Esther and I were on the first flight out. Once we got to the hospital, we could see that although Beans had suffered several broken bones, he was in good spirits. Unfortunately, Eddie’s prognosis was not as encouraging.
Beans had lost $12,000 in gate receipts that he’d had on him. But when the Highway Patrol found the car, they also found the money and returned it to us. With relief, we realized that just because it was the South didn’t mean all white people were bad.
Leaving Esther to handle things at the hospital, I went on the road to take over for Beans and Eddie. We had one-nighters for the next week: Tampa, Jacksonville, Macon, Daytona Beach, Miami, Orlando and Tallahassee. Though it was hard for us to keep our minds off the touch-and-go situation at the hospital, everybody gave their all every night.
That included me, who had no idea how much work went into handling these shows. I was struggling as hard as I could just to keep things together.
When the tour bus moved on to the next town, I would stay behind, clearing up business and flying in the following morning. One such night in Macon I checked out a local Blues club.
Walking in the joint, I was happy to hear some real down-home Blues. I saw in front of me a small stage where a little band was accompanying a singer who was wailing away. Not bad. Standing by the bar, I watched as another singer took his turn on stage. So-so.
It was some sort of amateur night. Anybody could go up. I was aching to. Not only did I want to hear the Blues, I wanted to sing ’em. When the emcee asked if anybody else wanted to come up, I raised my hand.
Within minutes he introduced me to the crowd, using the name I had given him—“Now put your hands together, ladies and gentleman, for Mr. Billy Jones!”
“Blues in F. As funky as you can get,” I said to the piano player. And he did, low-down. I looked around at the faces of the people at nearby tables. Nobody knew me. Good.
I started, “I love my baby, but my baby don’t love me. Oh yeah, I said, I love my baby but my baby just don’t love me…” I went on to sing anything coming to mind with deep feeling. I had no idea what I sounded like but the crowd was with me. They felt whatever pain and whatever joy I was feeling. For those ten minutes up on stage I forgot about all my problems. It was just me and the crowd and the Blues.
As soon as I joined up with the tour the next morning, I called Esther at the hospital. Sounding optimistic, she told me to let everyone know things were looking good. That night all the artists went out with renewed vigor.
The next night, in the next town, right before the show, I was on the way to my seat when I got a phone call. It was Esther. Eddie had taken a turn for the worse in the night. He was dead.
All of a sudden my priorities changed. I canceled the rest of the engagement and we headed back to Detroit to bury him. A blood bank was established in Eddie’s memory to be used for any Motown personnel or family member who might be in need. Almost everyone in the company lined up to donate.
We kept our mid-December engagement at the Apollo Theater in New York, adding Little Stevie Wonder to the lineup.
We knew that no audience in the world was tougher than the Apollo’s but the emotion of what we had been through made that concern irrelevant. We sailed through thirty-one shows over ten days and nights. The response was so enthusiastic we recorded the show for a live album.
When I read the review in Billboard magazine, I could see we were definitely breaking ground:
The Tamla-Motown rock and roll show opened New York’s Apollo Theater last week and in its first few days appeared to be on its way to cracking box-office records…. This is not the first show ever sponsored by a label but it is one of the most successful. It is understood that Gordy… who manages and books all talent on his two hot labels… will be presenting more shows of this type in the future.
I was big. I had made it in New York.
ASSEMBLY LINE
As other independent record companies were failing, we were thriving. I am often asked, “How did you do it? How did you make it work at a time when so many barriers existed for black people and black music?” There are many answers to those questions but at the base of them is atmosphere. Hitsville had an atmosphere that allowed people to experiment creatively and gave them the courage not to be afraid to make mistakes. In fact, I sometimes encouraged mistakes. Everything starts as an idea and as far as I was concerned there were no stupid ones. “Stupid” ideas are what created the lightbulb, airplanes and the like. I never wanted people to feel how I felt in school—dumb. It was an atmosphere that made you feel no matter how high your goals, they were reachable, no matter who you were.
I had always figured that less than 1 percent of all the people in the world reach their full potential. Seeing that potential in others, I realized that by helping them reach theirs, maybe I could reach mine.
This atmosphere was captured in our company song. It was written when I decided that we should have a team song to express the pride we felt in what we were doing. I proposed a contest, a challenge to see who could write the best one. Smokey won:
Oh, we have a very swinging company,
working hard from day to day.
Nowhere will you find more unity,
than at Hitsville, U.S.A.
Our main purpose is to please the world
with songs the DJs are glad to play.
Our employees are the very best,
here at Hitsville, U.S.A.
Our employees must be neat and clean,
and really have something on the ball.
Honesty is our only policy,
we’re all for one and one for all
We have a very swinging company,
working hard from day to day.
Nowhere will you find more unity
than at Hitsville… I said Hitsville… Than
at Hitsville, U.S.A.
Once a week we had a company meeting in the studio where everybody came. We sang the company song and we believed it. That unity was real.
Motown was a family, right from the beginning—living together, playing together, making music together, eating together.
When we weren’t in the studio, the place most of us would be was in the kitchen—waiting to get a helping of whatever Lilly Hart was fixing up.
Affectionately known as Miss Lilly, she was an older, slow-talking, warmhearted woman who cooked the “family meals.” Family was anyone who was in the building at one o’clock—lunchtime. There was always enough of her special chili to go around.
In many ways Hitsville was like growing up in the Gordy family—fierce closeness and fierce competition and constant collaboration.
That’s why, no matter what would happen over the cou
rse of the next thirty years, I would always love every person who was a part of this story. They’re all in my blood, and I in theirs. They cannot not love me; I cannot not love them. I know it. They know it. And there is nothing anybody can do about it.
Create, Sell and COLLECT had been effective in keeping our overall focus. So I decided to add three more words to complete the cycle: Pay, Save and Reinvest.
What I hoped to do was, Pay the bills, Save a little money, then Reinvest what’s left back into the business. But at that time there was no way I could think of Saving or Reinvesting. Overloaded with bills, royalties and taxes, my focus had to be on Paying, and I needed someone new to handle it.
George Edwards, CPA, Esther’s husband, had been doing a great job as General Manager and running my Finance Department part-time but he was overloaded, too. Especially since he had just been reelected to the Michigan State legislature for his fifth term. (In 1957 I had helped him get elected by persuading Jackie Wilson to record a campaign song I wrote and got played on the air, called “By George, Let George Dolt.”)
Up to now, I’d always had family members in charge of my money. Now I had to find an outsider I could trust.
One of the luckiest days in my life was when I met the Noveck brothers.
Sue Weisenfeld, a Detroit attorney who had done some work for us, set up a meeting between me and Harold Noveck.
I liked him a lot but when he told me he was a tax attorney, I said I didn’t need one of those at the moment. What I needed was someone to help keep track of the money transactions.
“It just so happens,” he said, “my brother is a partner in an accounting firm.”
We set up a meeting. Then I started thinking.
How was I going to judge how good an accountant was when I didn’t know anything about the subject? I knew I would have to follow my instincts and look for something I had relied on throughout my life in judging people—clues.
I put an ad in the Detroit Free Press for a certified public accountant. Within a week I was sifting through about forty résumés. I picked ten and set up meetings in addition to the one I had scheduled with Sidney Noveck, Harold’s brother.
The first thing I had to find out was if they were honest. Then I wanted to know if they could do the job.
Looking through the financial section, I put together a list of ten questions I would have each applicant answer in writing, having no idea myself what the answers were.
When the applicants finished their questionnaires, I interviewed each of them individually. They all started out talking about accounting but I managed to bring the subject around to other things I knew about. When one of them mentioned something about boxing I said, “Oh, that’s wonderful. I’m sure you’re familiar with Sandy Saddler.”
“Oh, yes, I know Sandy Saddler!” the man exclaimed. “How could any fight fan not know him?”
“Great welterweight wasn’t he?”
“The best!” the man echoed.
He had failed my bullshit test. Anyone who knew anything about boxing would have known Sandy Saddler wasn’t a welterweight at all but a champion featherweight. That applicant was off my list.
With some of the others I might bring up Charlie Parker and call him “the greatest tenor sax player in the world,” when in fact I knew he played alto. Other times, I’d use a riddle or an old adage to see how a person’s reasoning worked. I might say, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. What does that mean to you?” I wanted to make sure that they spoke a language that was common to me.
Not always accurate, most of the applicants seemed to know a little something about everything I mentioned.
Sidney Noveck, on the other hand, said he knew so little about those things he’d rather not comment.
A short, unobtrusive little guy, he had no apparent talents for selling himself. And when I looked at his questionnaire I saw he’d only answered six of the ten questions. He was the only applicant who hadn’t completed them all.
“What about the other four?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I’d like to check them out and get back to you.”
Hmm, not the brightest.
“Oh,” I said, “maybe you ought to take up accounting.”
“I did.”
No sense of humor either.
He looked puzzled but continued, “I don’t want to give you answers that may not be correct.”
“I understand,” I said, bidding him good-bye, never expecting or wanting to see this man again. I looked at the other questionnaires and through my own process of elimination came up with one applicant I really liked.
The next day I was about to notify the man I had chosen when Sidney called. “Mr. Gordy, I have the answers to those other questions.”
I wanted to say, “No shit,” but he was a sweet little man. So I just said, “Okay, what are they?”
“Question five applies to a tax case that was recently heard. The law had been changed. And on question eight, I had to check the record to be absolutely correct.” He then gave me the two other answers he hadn’t been sure of.
I had no idea what any of it meant, but in him I saw the character I was looking for. I hired him and his firm that day on the phone.
Eventually Sidney Noveck became the person I relied on to set up all my financial policies. He was simple, honest and determined to do things right in spite of anything and anybody.
He would sometimes drive me crazy. His books had to balance. He would spend endless hours and thousands of dollars trying to find a penny! But those countless hours to find a penny later saved me millions.
After working with Sidney a short time I found I did need the services of a tax attorney and I knew exactly who I wanted—his brother, Harold. Together Harold and Sidney would keep watch on the company’s financial operation, keeping it clean, solid.
Whenever there were challenges from anyone, our clean financial records backed up our claims. Later, when there would be tax problems or complaints that artists weren’t paid properly, the IRS or other auditors would swarm into our offices like vultures. And after looking at our books they would usually leave meekly, and in some cases even apologize. Throughout the years whoever ran my in-house Finance Department was subject to Sidney’s and Harold’s rules, regulations and policies.
I’d never dreamed as a kid that I’d be able to buy the Graystone Ballroom, where black people were only allowed in on Monday nights. But by Christmas of 1962, I owned it and we began holding our annual Christmas parties there. My brother Robert dressed up as Santa Claus and went around handing out our first bonuses to employees. We also presented a “Motown Spirit Award” to the person who most exemplified what Motown was about. Everybody in the company voted and there was always little doubt as to who would get it—either Smokey Robinson or Melvin Franklin. The first year it went to Smokey, the following year to Melvin. For five years, they were the only two people so honored.
Ever since that day in the boxing gym, years before, when I had seen the poster of the Battle of the Bands, an idea had stuck with me. Why not have a Battle of the Stars? And now that I had the Graystone, where people came to dance to all the latest records, I had the perfect place for it. On some nights, in between the dances, I would put on a special show.
These “Battles” were immediate hits—sellouts. I matched up everybody: the Supremes against the Velvelettes, Martha and the Vandellas against the Marvelettes, the Tempts against the Contours.
Everything went great until one night we pitted Marvin Gaye against Little Stevie Wonder. Going into the match, Marvin had a string of hits, and Stevie only his first, a record that had come about when we were recording a live album at Chicago’s Regal Theater.
One night after finishing “Fingertips”—a jazzy harmonica number—his producer, Clarence Paul, was escorting him off stage when Stevie broke away at the wings and ran back out on the stage. The bass player who was playing for Stevie, thinking the song was over, had left the s
tage and Mary Wells’s bassist quickly moved in. When Stevie started singing the song again, the new bass player shouted out, “What key? What key?”
We’re not sure why the record was such a big hit but leaving that mistake in didn’t hurt. There are certain kinds of mistakes I love. They sometimes give things extra life and magic because of their raw, real quality. Not only was it our second #1 Pop single but it was the first live single to ever go to #1 in Billboard and the cornerstone hit of our first #1 Pop album.
Still, in my mind Marvin was the favorite for the upcoming battle at the Graystone. He was riding high on his third and biggest hit so far, “Pride And Joy.” Both Stevie and Marvin were tough competitors, but Marvin, wanting to surprise the audience and ensure himself a victory, got himself a melodica, an oversized harmonica with a piano keyboard that you play with your fingers as you blow into it. He practiced on that thing like a maniac.
The big night arrived. They were ready. First round. Stevie came out singing and blowing like mad on his harmonica to “Workout Stevie, Workout.” The crowd was dancing. They loved it.
Marvin was up. Like a prizefighter, he jumped on stage to one of his hottest songs, “Hitch Hike,” dancing and shaking with everything he had. Then when he got to the third verse he whipped out the melodica. Surprise! Everybody went wild.
End of round one: Marvin slightly ahead.
Round two. Stevie came out with his bluesy “I Call It Pretty Music But The Old Folks Call It The Blues.” Instead of Stevie ending the song, he segued right into “Everybody say yeah…” Recognizing the intro to “Fingertips Pt. 2,” the crowd screamed, “Yeah!” Stevie was back, working the crowd to a frenzy.
Now came round two for Marvin. He was confident, eager. The band struck up the intro to “Stubborn Kind Of Fellow” and Marvin skipped onto the stage, ready to take this thing on home. But instead of the big reception he expected there was some booing mixed in with the usual screams from the women. I was confused. And he was, too. Marvin ignored it and jumped into his song.