Race, soul, and a $3.19 cheque: How Berry Gordy’s formative years with Jackie Wilson spurred on the creation of Motown
Motown: the golden lights, the global sensation, a piece of history. But that fate was far from always being written in the stars.
Indeed, it took Berry Gordy years of hard graft to even get the genre close to lifting off the ground, working various jobs in the meantime while his pipe dream of a record label was seemingly never going to come to fruition. One royalty cheque he received in those years of toiling away was only for $3.19. It wasn’t going to be enough to keep the lights on.
Yet something about Gordy, whether it was his tenacity or stubbornness, always knew that Motown, or Tamla Records as it was known at the time, was well worth fighting for. He’d had enough of music by Black artists only being marketed towards limited Black audiences, and knew there was a far bigger success they could tap into, especially given that people like Elvis Presley would make covers of these songs into hits.
Yes, it was a mighty challenge, but with Jackie Wilson in his back pocket, having proven instrumental to his musical foundations, Gordy knew in his heart that he had what it took to steer the course. Indeed, it was some six years before Motown ever came into the fray, back in 1953, that the future founder came into the orbit of the man who would make one of his greatest stars.
Gordy had just returned from serving in the army, where he had been posted to Korea as part of the country’s war effort. Military life was ultimately not his path of choice, however, as he then ventured into music and attempted to open his own record store, where business barely boomed. Supposedly down and out, his family then put him in contact with the owner of the Flame Show Bar Talent Club, who then introduced him to their singer, Wilson.
From there, the pair struck up an extraordinary friendship where Gordy was the mastermind behind a string of hits for Wilson, starting off with ‘Reet Petite’ in 1957, which managed to make its way to the top ten in the UK. After that, they had tasted the champagne and were chasing those bubbles again, creating six more songs together over the next two years.
While that catalogue with Wilson may not have had the conventional hallmarks of a groundbreaking musical sensation, it did garner Gordy enough momentum, where he was able to invest his songwriting profits back into producing, where his passion really lay. By 1957, he had discovered The Miracles and decided to take the leap of faith to borrow $800 to kickstart the label.
Without wanting to get bogged down in the mechanics of business too much, it was clear that Motown would have been nothing without the impact of Wilson in those founding moments, with the same felt by him later down the line. All those late nights, extra jobs, and $3 cheques were completely worth the pay-off in the end.
It hardly bears thinking that Gordy’s endeavours may never have come to fruition, but at the same time, it also proves that years of struggles and challenges are par for the course when trying to make anything work in the music business. Sure, Motown had more societal hurdles to jump than most, but if they could do it, truly anyone could.
