by Berry Gordy
It’s either good or bad.
I tossed my coin to say
in love with me you’d stay.
But all in war is so cold.
You either win or lose.
When all is put away,
the losing side I’ll play.
But all is fair in love.
I should have never left your side.
A writer takes his pen to write the words again
that all in love is fair.
A writer takes his pen to write the words again
that all in love is fair.
© 1973 Jobete Music Co., Inc. and Black Bull Music, Inc.
STEVIE WONDER
12
TROUBLES AND TRIBUTES
1975–1983
TIGHTROPE
November 28, 1979. I was sitting alone in the big round Jacuzzi in the middle of the spacious living room of my suite at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. It was my birthday. Every year I made a practice of disappearing around that time. I didn’t want people bringing me gifts just because it was my birthday. I was much more concerned about how people treated me the other 364 days of the year.
I had come to Caesars Palace with my friends Billy Davis and Mira Waters. Mira was someone he had introduced to me many years before. She was a petite, pretty, black actress. She was hip, smart, confident, and funny.
Mira was downstairs playing baccarat. She was having a ball. Billy was partying with friends somewhere. He was having a ball. I was depressed. I had a lot on my mind. I had to analyze what was going on in my company.
Our popularity, like our overhead, was growing, while our revenues, like our roster of stars, was shrinking. Making movies had boosted our prestige but not our profits. I loved making them but had a lot to learn about how to make money at it. In the meantime I had slipped in the business I did know something about—records.
I had to laugh when I thought back to 1968 and how we were all gloating over having five records out of the Top 10 in one week. We had no idea at the time that the seeds of our undoing were being planted. Across the country in offices of the major record companies skeptics who never thought there was a market for black talent went on the offensive to grab the kind of music they had always thought would stay “over there.” That was the beginning of a whole new ball game.
Some companies started developing their own black artists, while others were coming after Motowners—not only the artists, but the writers and producers as well. This was not easy for them to do, since most of our successful artists, producers and writers were happy and dedicated. But the more big business it became, the tougher it was for us to maintain our growth and protect against the subtle and not so subtle rush to capture our people.
In these changing times, the value of a proven artist was skyrocketing into the multimillions. And when a label decided to acquire someone else’s artist, one who was already under contract, something once frowned on as unethical, it was now tolerated. I had a problem with that. I had a problem anteing up more every time an artist we had developed got a better offer. To me it became values versus value. I began to realize there was a major conflict within me between my values and the artists’ value. Perhaps stubbornly, I would not always pay what it would take to get them to stay. That might have been a mistake.
While we were continuing to sign and launch new artists, some of our top acts from the sixties were leaving: Gladys Knight and the Pips, the Marvelettes, Martha and the Vandellas. Other groups left and later returned, like the Four Tops and the Temptations. Some did well, others didn’t. Some were signed by companies that had no idea what to do with them.
The problem was that many Motown artists were used to a record company that provided a creative environment, relationships, a team, the ability to launch careers of longevity. I always believed this was the record company’s obligation to the artist. That worked well when I could keep costs down, but those times were gone.
Our move to California hadn’t helped. In Los Angeles we were one of many record companies, while in Detroit we had been the record company. The seventies had seen the departures of some of our key producers and writers from the old days: Harvey Fuqua and Johnny Bristol, Ashford and Simpson, Norman Whitfield. In California, our in-house way of producing was being replaced by a different, much more expensive way of making records. We would more and more have to look to independent producers, arrangers and musicians. Developing a perfect match between them and our artists was now much more complicated.
I was beginning to wonder if I was the right person to be running this company. Over the years I noticed that many successful entrepreneurs are driven, self-taught people who have a great desire to be loved and respected. Sometimes they create institutions that outgrow their personal style. I think I fit into that category.
Whatever my goals were at any given time, my strongest inclination was that of a teacher. Not just about singing, dancing and music but about winning and losing in life.
It never mattered who I was working with, that person’s growth inevitably became more important than the project we were working on. One project was just another project to me. But I knew if I strengthened that person in some way, even at the expense of that one project, they could go on to do hundreds of successful projects.
I was a fanatic about—not just teaching—but making them really learn. I, no doubt, went a little overboard at times.
There’s an old saying I believe in: Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. But give him a pole and he can eat for the rest of his life. Pop had been doing that with us for years, so I guess I came by it naturally.
When it came to managing a complex operation growing at the rate Motown was, I could see my personal methods weren’t geared for that. So I tried to set up a management hierarchy to do it for me—like other big companies. I brought in an outside consulting firm to do a thorough analysis.
After getting their reports I hired some of these same people who had given me answers to all of my problems to be my new executives.
This isolated me from the insider loyalists who had grown up with the company and had learned my style the hard way. They weren’t about to let these new “wonder boys” with their new ideas come in and change things in ways that went against the principles that were the foundation of Motown. They wouldn’t openly defy the people I had brought in, but they would sit back and watch these “corporate experts” self-destruct. And in some cases, help them. Many took bets on how long the “wonder boys” would last.
The man who most had to deal with these consultants was the president of my record company, Ewart Abner, who already had his hands full just running the operation day to day. For the past couple of years he had done a good job, but by 1975 I was no longer happy with his performance. Productivity was down and I held him responsible.
In retrospect, I realized the situation was more complicated than that. Suzanne was running the Creative Division, which was the key to our company’s success and survival, and whenever Ab disagreed with her and tried to override her decisions, she knew she could come directly to me.
To further complicate matters, I had become somewhat of an absentee landlord.
It didn’t stop with Creative. We had problems all over the place—bickering by middle-management people, confusion brought on by my new corporate “experts,” and a president without a lot of authority, a situation made tougher by financial worries and the loss of the Jackson 5.
I wanted to revive the old days. I wanted a czarlike character—a screaming, scheming, get-things-done, calculating, demanding kind—to run the company. I wanted Barney Ales back. Lucky for me he wanted to be back. I made a three-year consulting arrangement with Ab and asked him to step aside.
Helped by some things Abner had already set up, Barney came in with a bang, using all kinds of unique marketing schemes. One of his most effective campaigns was on the Stevie Wonder album, Songs in the Key of Life.
Stevie had been a major force in getting us
through the early seventies with his three genius albums—Talking Book, Innervisions and Fulfillingness’ First Finale. But then I heard his contract was coming up for renewal. And other companies were wooing him like mad. No! Not again! Not Stevie.
Our negotiation with him became the most grueling and nerve-wracking we had ever had, mainly because Stevie was still represented by our old friend, Johanan Vigoda. But, as before, at no time was it ever even implied that he might leave Motown. I appreciated that.
In April of 1976, we made a $13 million deal with Stevie that, I was told, was unprecedented for the time. I yielded to a unique clause that in the event I sold the company, he had to approve the buyer. That particular clause didn’t bother me at that time because selling Motown was about as out of the question as my going back to work on the Lincoln-Mercury assembly line, singing “Mary Had A Little Lamb.”
Five months later, Stevie’s next album was ready for release, Songs in the Key of Life. When Barney and I first heard it we knew it was a double-album masterpiece. Barney rushed to do his thing. He and his staff prepromoted it every way they could, including setting up phone calls at a convention in Chicago between me and all the distributors so they could personally feel my excitement. Songs in the Key of Life entered the Pop charts its very first week at #1, making Stevie the first American artist to do that.
In 1977 Stevie was back at the Grammys, taking home another five awards, the same number he had won two years before for Fulfillingness’ First Finale. This made him the only artist ever to win Album of the Year for three consecutive albums.
Another act coming on strong by the mid-seventies was the Commodores, whom we had signed back in 1971. “Piggy-backing” this brand-new group on tour to open for the Jackson 5, we gave them some great exposure even before they had a hit. The story about their first record success began in the least likely of all places—on the island of St. Maarten, where I had gone to play in a backgammon tournament and to sneak a long overdue vacation. In my party was Suzanne de Passe, who wasted no time in promoting the new group.
As soon as we arrived at the hotel, she came to my room with a tape she said I just had to hear.
“You intentionally came here to ruin my vacation. It’s a plot.”
“Absolutely not,” she protested. “One song, that’s all.” She then proceeded to play something she told me was called “The Ram.”
It was full of interesting, fast-darting, staccato sounds. “I love the track,” I told her, “but I’d rather you bring it to me when you have the vocals dubbed in, when it’s finished.”
“It is finished,” Suzanne said. “It’s an instrumental.”
I couldn’t even remember the last time we’d released an instrumental, but there was something about this one I liked.
“Okay,” I said, “but it doesn’t sound like a ram to me. Those darting sounds remind me of gunshots. Why not call it ‘Machine Gun’?”
“Of course. What a great name!” (She would’ve agreed to anything to get the record out.)
Being musicians and songwriters in addition to vocalists, the Commodores were a self-contained group. Lionel Richie, who sang most of their leads, played saxophone; Milan Williams was on keyboards; Thomas McClary on guitar; Ronald LaPread played bass; William King—trumpet; and Walter “Clyde” Orange—drums. In early ’76, “Sweet Love” broke them into the Top 10. Working with longtime arranger and producer James Carmichael, the group had major hits in the next three years that spanned everything from the Country-Pop-flavored “Easy” to the funky “Brick House.” Their “Three Times A Lady” in 1978 became an explosive first #1 for the group. With hits like “Still” and “Sail On” in 1979 the Commodores were ready to sail on into the eighties.
But the company wasn’t. In 1978 “Three Times A Lady” was the only Motown single to break the Top 10 for the whole year. We had become dangerously dependent on a handful of our superstars—like the Commodores, Marvin, Smokey, Diana and Stevie. When we got a new album from one of them it meant an influx of millions; when we didn’t—it meant trouble. And without developing successful new acts, it meant even bigger trouble.
As head of the Creative Division of the record company, Suzanne was struggling too hard with the producers, writers and artists. Her talents were not being utilized properly.
She had worked closely with me on TV and movie projects and had shown great instincts, dramatic imagination and a real feel for the visual world. I moved her over to head our movie production company, MPI.
With the phenomenal Motown specials she would be responsible for, some very successful Movies-of-the-Week, and an award-winning miniseries, that would turn out to be a great move.
But the Creative Division of the record company—so vital to our strength—was still without that perfect executive. In my attempts to find such a person we would go on to have eleven different heads of that division while in California alone. But the problem wasn’t just creative.
Barney and I knew we could never revive those old days. The circumstances weren’t the same anymore. The business had changed and so had the excitement of the old days. And Barney’s big motivation, that thing that inspired him to perform miracles in marketing, was money. I didn’t have very much and he kept asking for more. In January of ’79, once again, we parted ways. Once again I was back to running the company myself—and looking for a new czar.
By now it had been three years since Stevie’s last album. We were waiting frantically for his new one. He was forever telling us, “Next month.” We would gear up, gear down, gear up, gear down.
Finally, it was ready—a double-album soundtrack from a movie documentary—Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants. When I first heard it, I got a sinking feeling it might not be the smash we so desperately needed from Stevie. But because he was such an innovator, influencing a generation of music makers, I was hopeful. I wanted to be wrong real bad.
Before it was released, Fay Hale, vice president in charge of Manufacturing and devoted Motown employee, rushed in to see me, screaming that her office was ordered by Sales to press up two million copies for shipment.
“I have no ear as you always remind me,” she said, “and I may be missing something, but a record about plant life with elephants stepping on glass? Do you know how expensive these double-album covers are? They’ve got special embossing, special die-cutting—and Braille!”
I hurried over to Sales where everybody was already celebrating what was to be the new Stevie Wonder smash of the decade. Stevie’s past successes had made them big heroes, so they were adamant about going with the two million advance pressings. But I was more adamant that we cut the order in half, to one million. I won. And still that turned out to be around nine hundred thousand too many.
Now here I was, a month later, on my birthday, sitting in a hot tub in Las Vegas, depressed, trying to get it together. This wasn’t just any old birthday, this was my fiftieth. All I could think about was overhead: sales people, promotion people, production, advertising, publicity, purchasing, administration, personnel, a legal department and all that other stuff.
Mira Waters came back to the suite and saw me still in the Jacuzzi. “Get yo’ ass out of that hot water before you turn into a prune. Come on down to the casino. We need some of that Gordy luck.”
“Yeah,” Billy said, sticking his head in behind her, “and some of that Gordy money, too.”
Those two always made me feel better. Maybe the tables would lift my spirits.
I lost $10,000.
Even so, on the plane ride home I was already cheering myself up. Stevie will get a better album, Diana’s there, Smokey’s there, Marvin’s there, the Commodores. I’m going to be fine. By Monday morning I was optimistic.
“Hi, guys,” I said cheerfully to the not-too-cheerful-looking Novecks, who were waiting in my office.
Still living in Detroit, they had flown out to L.A. for a meeting with me.
“Distressing news,” Harold said.
“Lik
e what?”
“Well,” Sidney said in his Southern, Jewish accent, “you’re insolvent!”
“Insolvent? What do you mean?”
“Bankrupt,” Harold said. “You’ve got more liabilities than assets.”
“But how could that be?”
“I’ve been telling you all along,” Sidney said, “over and over again, Mr. Gordy, you’re spending too much.”
He was right. He had told me. Sidneygrams I called them. About once every few months—like the kid who cried wolf—he would send me a note complaining or warning me about something. I had gotten numb to them.
“But you’re my auditors. There should be better checks and balances to prevent this kind of thing from happening.” Even as I said it, I knew the responsibility was mine—I hadn’t been paying attention.
About this same time, Jerry Moss, the head of A&M Records, came to see me at my beach house. Jerry and his partner, Herb Alpert, had also built their company from the ground up and we were looking for a way to survive. We had been grappling with a problem in the industry—the decline of the independent distributors. More and more, record labels like ours had been forced to switch their distribution over to the majors—the big record companies who had money and clout and their own branch distribution.
A few years before, Jerry and I had joined forces to set up our own distributorship, which we called “Together.” We were hoping that by this alliance Motown and A&M could stay independent through ownership of our own distribution in some key areas. But now, they had decided to stop bucking the tide.
So Jerry told me A&M was making a deal with RCA for national distribution. In order to do that I had to release him from our five-year deal, which still had six months to go.
Jerry was a friend and had always been honorable in all our dealings.
“No problem,” I said.
He appreciated that but was concerned about me. I told him I wasn’t ready to give up my independence. I wanted to stick it out a little longer.