Monthly Archives: February 2024

The contest challenge for this series of posts has been to identify one musician and the song references contained in each entry. Although identifying some of the songs might have been a bit tricky and difficult – particularly since the …

Before we go. Although he was only there for a brief time, Berry Gordy put his experience working at Ford to good use in building Motown. In his autobiography To Be Loved, Gordy wrote, “At the plant, the cars started …

More than just the hits. How Berry Gordy, Jr. made the Motown miracle. In just under 30 years Berry Gordy, Jr. had taken the $800 (approximately $7,650 in 2023 dollars) loan from his family credit union and turned it into …

The accidental secretary becomes a hitmaking singer. Martha Rose Reeves never intended to do secretarial work at Motown. Like many aspiring singers, she had a series of day jobs but she spent her nights gigging at various Detroit nightclubs singing …

Home to much of the U S automotive industry, Detroit is often called the “Motor City” so it makes some sense that soon after establishing Tamla Records on 12 January 1959, Berry Gordy, Jr., a man looking to make his …