by Berry Gordy
Deke had taken me at my word. The concept he came back with for the Jackson 5’s next record was simple, although while working on the lyrics we kept changing our minds from “1-2-3” to “A-B-C.”
On February 24, 1970 “ABC” was released and by April it was #1, knocking the Beatles’ “Let It Be” out of the top chart position.
Shelly got calls offering $5,000 a night.
The third song, “The Love You Save,” was filled with classic J-5 breaks and hit #1 in June.
Shelly was now getting offers for the boys at around $20,000. He was cockier than ever and held his ground.
“Guess what?” I said, getting the boys together one day. “You guys are doing the Forum!” Shelly had gotten the $25,000—plus a percentage.
“That’s wonderful,” Michael said. Then, pausing for a moment, curiously, “On whose show?”
“Yours.”
“Yeah, but who’s the star?”
“You all are. You’re the stars.”
Michael, Jermaine, Jackie, Tito and Marlon all looked at me and each other in disbelief.
Once they comprehended they were the stars, they were stars. They drew over eighteen thousand people, selling out the house. After that bookings started pouring in from all over the world.
But, as always, I was more concerned with the next record. The first three songs had been fast, upbeat. It was time for a change. Maybe a ballad.
After three consecutive #1 records I felt the Corporation, which included me, had become a little complacent. This was evidenced by the fact that our fourth record was not coming together well. It sounded too much like the other three, but not as good. While we continued working on it, Hal Davis and newcomer Willie Hutch, who were not in the Corporation, woke me up at five o’clock one morning and said they and another writer, Bob West, had the makings of a hit tune for the Jackson 5, but wanted my help. I told them, “It better be good.”
When I first heard it I wasn’t overly thrilled, but I liked the concept. It was a change of pace, a ballad. Perfect for the Jackson 5’s fourth release. All we had to do was make the story more relevant to the image I had for these young stars.
With Michael’s sweet, serious voice promising “I’ll be there to protect you” and trading off verses with Jermaine singing a soulful “I’ll be there with a love that’s strong—I’ll be your strength, I’ll be holdin’ on,” and the simple background from the other Jacksons, the record, “I’ll Be There,” was pure gold.
With it, the Jackson 5 made Top 100 history as they became the first group ever to have their first four singles go to #1.
Those four records had happened within an eleven-month period. In that short time five brothers from Gary, Indiana, had gone from anonymity to a household name. Their hard work was unconditional and they were willing to sweat for perfection. They had such respectful, soft-spoken manners, that I never even heard a normal complaint of being tired. It seemed like the Motown machinery had been just waiting for the Jackson 5 to come along.
I didn’t realize that the launching of the Jackson 5 would mark the end of something major for me. They would be the last stars I would develop with the same intensity and emotional investment as I had with the earlier Motown artists. They would be the last big stars to come rolling off my assembly line.
MERCY MERCY ME
But just as the Jackson 5 were soaring, Diana Ross and the Supremes were breaking up. Diana was going solo.
May 7, 1970. It was a boiling hot Las Vegas afternoon when Mike Roshkind slowly lowered the phone to its cradle in my hotel suite. Pale in his face, “Terrible news,” he muttered.
Everything had been building to the night that lay ahead of us—the Las Vegas debut of Diana Ross—alone. Her new career was riding on that evening at the Frontier Hotel. The press was expected in full force. All she had to do now was deliver. And I knew she would.
The breakup of Diana Ross and the Supremes had taken its toll on everybody. For nearly a decade they were the symbol of the many triumphs of the Motown Machine. Their breakup represented the end of an era but it was inevitable. The growing tension between Diana and Mary was becoming obvious to everyone. The more the public clamored for Diana, the harder it became on the other two—and Diana herself. Cindy, however, being the newest member, was not affected as much.
I knew Mary. I knew how she felt. She knew me, and how I felt. She knew Diana was my baby. Everybody did. She also knew how much I loved and respected her and understood the pressure she was under. She was a fighter, always hanging in there. Now it had become too tough on all of them.
I spent a long time trying to figure out how to make Diana’s leaving a positive. “Two-for-one stock split,” is what Mike said when I told him I was determined to try and find the best replacement in the world for Diana.
We started a massive search, everybody looking everywhere. After a few months I found her, Jean Terrell, the sister of heavyweight boxer Ernie Terrell. I saw her at a club in Miami. She had class, style, looks and talent. If anyone could step into Diana’s shoes, I felt she could.
Mike Roshkind, doing his normal PR thing, was telling everybody about our two-for-one stock split.
We’d have two great entities instead of one.
That was exactly how we approached it. Though I knew my time would be spent working with Diana, I made sure the new Supremes had strong support. I assigned talented producer Frank Wilson to work with them, Gil Askey as their musical conductor, and Shelly Berger as their manager.
We released the last single on Diana Ross and the Supremes, “Someday We’ll Be Together.” A rich, emotional production by Johnny Bristol, which he had co-written with Harvey Fuqua and Jackey Beavers, it became their twelfth and last #1. They took their final bows together on a high note.
Two of the first Frank produced on the new Supremes were big hits: “Up The Ladder To The Roof” and then “Stoned Love.” They were off and running. Their bookings were strong and we were ecstatic.
Everyone knew the big business Diana Ross and the Supremes had done as a group, but as an unproven commodity, booking Diana by herself was very difficult. Because of the enormous success of the group’s farewell engagement at the Frontier Hotel, they decided to give her the first shot as a Vegas star headliner. Together with Rogers & Cowan we mounted a major campaign, buying taxi cab ads, renting billboards, getting magazine covers, all of it.
When Mike told me that day in our hotel room that he had terrible news I thought it might have something to do with the show that night. “What could be so bad?” I asked.
“No reservations! Only about five hours to go to show time,” he said, shaking his head. He had just gotten off the phone with the hotel management and out of approximately six hundred seats, only about thirty had been reserved for Diana’s opening show. Disaster.
“Must be a joke,” I said.
“No joke,” Mike assured me.
“We’re in such trouble.”
“What do you mean we?”
We laughed but knew it was no laughing matter. “Okay, okay, let me think,” I said. “First of all Diana must not know anything! If she walks out there and sees a handful of people in that big room, I’m dead. Her faith and confidence would be shattered in herself—and me. I want some people there. I don’t care how we do it.” I got up and started pacing.
Mike left the room to get some air. When he returned I had a plan.
“We’ll tear twenty dollar bills in half and give one side to people on the street, promising if they come to Diana’s show tonight, they’ll get the other half.”
“Strangest damn idea I ever heard, but you know me, the stranger the better.”
“Okay,” I said, “we ain’t got much time.”
“But wait. Let me call the Frontier people. We need to calm them down before they get some stupid thoughts of canceling the show.” He grabbed the phone and told them that historically Diana got big walk-in-traffic, a last-minute audience.
They bought it. We then hit the st
reets talking to everybody, cab drivers, locals working in restaurants, tourists sunbathing at swimming pools.
“Ever heard of Diana Ross?” we’d say.
“Diana Ross! Sure, she’s with them Supremes ain’t she?” was a typical response.
“Well, not only can you come see her show at the Frontier but…” I’d give them half of a twenty, “you can get the other half of this when you get to the show!”
“Ain’t this my lucky day,” said one lady, clutching the money as if she’d just won big on the slots. Within a couple of hours, we had covered the strip.
Luckily, we got to the showroom early. People were already there wanting the other half of their twenties. It had worked! Our scheme had worked. We were in business. Right away we started trying to match the serial numbers on the twenties. Impossible. We couldn’t find one number that was the same. Soon that little crowd had turned into a noisy mob.
“I need cash,” I screamed out.
“I got a couple hundred,” Mike shouted.
“That’s not nearly enough. Plus I need it in twenties.”
“Don’t you have credit here?”
This was one time my old gambling habits paid off. I had good credit with the casino.
I rushed to the cashier’s cage and ordered about $10,000 in twenties. We collected all the halves and gave the people crisp new $20 bills in exchange. We ended up with a happy audience and a big bagful of torn-up money.
Diana was normally on edge on any opening night, but she, like all of us, knew how important this night was. Though many things went wrong, it turned out to be an incredible opening night.
Despite light cues that were missed, the tempo too fast on some of the songs, a broken zipper on one of her quick-change gowns, Diana proved herself a star once again, smiling her way through the whole show, giving the performance of her life.
I had no idea she was seething inside until I rushed to the wings to congratulate her as she came off the stage.
“That was a horrible show,” she said. “People paid to come see me and didn’t get their money’s worth!”
“Oh, Diana, I think they did.”
If she only knew.
The reviews were great and for the rest of her Frontier engagement the audiences continued to build. And so did her solo career.
She was now at the threshold of becoming the superstar we had always dreamed she could be.
For the past five years she and I had been intensely involved both professionally and romantically. They were interchangeable. One fed off the other. We had had success after success together. I don’t think there was a question in either of our minds that we would always be together. I felt certain that our dream was within reach. And I wanted to go for it all the way. So did she. But as in any long-term relationship the question of marriage had come up. Could our romantic relationship continue without it or would marriage destroy our dream, everything we’d worked for? We both knew that the conflict between our personal relationship as lovers and the roles we played professionally was taking its toll.
I was her mentor, her manager, her boss. She was my protégé, my artist, my star. We both recognized that my role had become too defined, too demanding and too unyielding to exist in a loving marriage. And in order to take the dream all the way my role would have to become even more intense. Emotionally, we were on a collision course. We ended our personal relationship sadly and by mutual agreement so we could focus completely on the professional one.
Nineteen seventy was not only a good year for Diana Ross, the Jackson 5 and the new Supremes but several of our other artists were hitting big.
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles had themselves a #1 with “The Tears Of A Clown.” A song written by Smokey, Stevie Wonder and Hank Cosby, it had been used as an album cut three years before, never intended for release as a single. But when it became a big hit in the U.K. we decided to release it as a single in the U.S.
Gladys Knight and the Pips had a big hit she almost didn’t record during this time. When Gladys first heard “If I Were Your Woman,” written by Pam Sawyer, Gloria Jones and Clay McMurray, she didn’t think it fit her image. She later told me she wouldn’t have cut the record had I not convinced her to do it.
As the new decade was beginning, the changes happening in society inspired changes in our music. Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong’s songs captured the spirit of this era:
People movin’ out, people moving’ in,
Why—because of the color of the skin,
Run, run, run, but you sho’ can’t hide.
An eye for an eye, A tooth for a tooth,
Vote for me and I’ll set you free.
Rap on brother, rap on.
Well the only person talkin’ ’bout love thy brother is the preacher.
And it seems nobody’s interested in learning but the teacher.
Segregation, determination, demonstration, integration,
Aggravation, humiliation, obligation to our nation.
Ball of confusion—that’s what the world is today…
The production of the Tempts’ “Ball of Confusion (That’s What The World Is Today),” with its electrifying, yet melodic tracks, was pure Norman.
Next, he and Barrett took on the Vietnam War in a record or Edwin Starr:
War—Uh! What is it good for?
Absolutely nothin’!
War, I despise
’Cause it means destruction of innocent lives
(say it again)
War means tears in thousands of mothers eyes
When their sons go out to fight;
And lose their lives…
War! It’s nothing but a heartbreaker
War! Friend only to the undertaker
Peace love and understanding, tell me, is there no place for them today?
They say we must fight to keep our freedom, but Lord knows, it’s got to be a better way…
“War,” with Edwin’s thundering vocals and Norman’s raging tracks, charged up to #1 and became almost an anthem of the times—voicing the deep antiwar feelings of a growing number of people.
Norman was like a madman. He continued to keep the Tempts on top with songs like “Runaway Child, Running Wild,” “I Can’t Get Next To You” and “Psychedelic Shack.”
Norman’s great versatility, his edgy, raw street energy always thrilled me. He ultimately amassed a body of work that I think makes him one of the most important producers of his time.
By now it was clear my life was in California and, bit by bit, the company and much of my family began to join me. Gwen and Anna had already been here for a few years. For Mother and Pop, the warm weather and beautiful scenery was a welcome change. They were still both very much a part of the company. Ever since I had bought Pop’s contracting business, I had put him to work at the company in a variety of capacities—consulting on our different buildings and being a company liaison, providing an open ear for any concerns from artists and employees alike. I had come up with a policy years before that required two signatures on every check that was issued and Mother was one of the few signators.
In these matters, having family to depend on was critical to me. Fuller, the head of Administration, was another signator. Laid-back, yet detail-oriented and methodical, he had just the right personality and skills to handle the demands of being in charge of personnel, purchasing and company policy maintenance.
Esther and George chose to remain in Detroit, Esther to oversee company activities there, and George to take over a pressing plant we had bought in the area.
My brother Robert has always liked unique challenges and games that called for mental sharpness. He was good at a lot of things. In ’65 when our sister Loucye died, Robert asked to take over Jobete. He didn’t have much experience in the publishing area, but I knew he had the talent and ability to do it. Robert took on the challenge of Jobete and brilliantly ran it for the next twenty years.
Since we have been so close as a family, and we can of
ten take family for granted, I probably never gave Robert, my little brother, the credit he deserved. So Robert, I’d like to thank you for moving Jobete from a holding company for our copyrights into a highly profitable, competitive international publishing company, keeping us #1 for many years. And also just for being my little brother.
We now had a Motown recording studio in L. A. The person most responsible for it, as well as other technical and creative areas, was Guy Costa. I met him when I first came to California. (He was the nephew of the great music arranger, Don Costa.) It seems I was always meeting these little creative geniuses. In the early days it had been Mike McLean, who built my studios at Hitsville when I first started. Now it was Guy Costa, who made sure our facility on Romaine Street in Los Angeles, not far from the company offices on Sunset, was state-of-the-art. Though we called it Mowest at first, it was later renamed Hitsville.
Engineers are often some of the most important yet overlooked factors in a record’s success. From those early days when Lawrence Horn had to handle most of the recording and mixing, we had been fortunate to build one of the best engineering teams in the business that included Larry Miles, Calvin Harris, Art Stewart and Russ Terrana. Russ was the one I worked with most. He loved competing with me to see who could get the best mix. Though he was supposed to be just an engineer, doing what he was directed to do, he always wanted his own shot to beat out the producers. And many times he did. At the same time our engineers made the move to California, some of our musicians like James Jamerson and Robert White were migrating, while other local professionals were becoming regulars in the studio. But no matter where we were, the same feelings went into the music—the love, the honesty, the soul and the family way of doing things.
Some things, though, about my new life in California were different.
Unlike in Detroit where people usually recognized me on the street or in public places, here, I was just an ordinary citizen and I liked that.
I remember one night I went to a party in the Hollywood Hills. Because I’d had some wine with dinner I was driving slowly down the unfamiliar roads. I was stopped by the cops, who pulled me over, shining lights in my face. Now I was not just an ordinary citizen, but a black guy in the Hollywood Hills—driving a Rolls-Royce. After checking my license and registration they put me through their regular routine—asked me to walk a straight line, asked how many fingers they were holding up. No problem. They weren’t quite satisfied. “Say your ABCs,” one of them said.