The first artist Berry Gordy tried to write a song for: “Never heard back”
Everybody has to start somewhere, and years before the Motown empire stormed over the horizon of the pop charts during the 1960s, label boss Berry Gordy contended himself with writing songs for other artists and sending those songs out into the ether, hoping that somebody would take notice.
During the early days of Motown’s journey to world domination, Gordy wrote a multitude of songs for the artists on his ever-expanding roster, including major hits like Barrett Strong’s ‘Money (That’s What I Want)’ and The Contours’ ‘Do You Love Me’. However, Gordy’s career as a songwriter long pre-dates his career as a label boss. In the pre-Motown days, he penned songs for everybody from LaVern Baker to soul icon Jackie Wilson.
While Gordy’s compositions never attempted to reinvent the musical wheel, typically following the same unbeatable pop formula of broken hearts and romantic infatuation, his talents as a writer nevertheless gave him the necessary experience to establish his Motown revolution. However, his very first songwriting effort didn’t exactly go to plan, and it certainly didn’t reach the same dizzying heights as Jackie Wilson’s ‘Reet Petite’ – which was one of Gordy’s early works.
Rather than playing to his future strengths within the realm of soul and R&B, Gordy chose instead to pen his first song for none other than Doris Day during the early 1950s.
Having already established herself among America’s defining stars of the silver screen throughout the 1940s, Day’s career was also noted for its incredibly successful discography of pop smashes, which a young Berry Gordy was attempting to extend.
“The first song I tried to have recorded was ‘You Are You’,” the Motown boss once revealed during an interview with David Sheff. “I wrote it with Doris Day in mind. She was the American girl-next-door.”
As any Day aficionados will already be aware, however, the song never saw the light of day, perhaps owing to the performer’s incredibly busy schedule during that period in the 1950s. “I knew that she would record it if she heard it,” Gordy said. “So I sent it to her in Hollywood, but never heard back from her.”
Ultimately, there is no way of knowing whether Doris Day actually heard ‘You Are You’, her reasons for ignoring the song or, indeed, whether Gordy’s song was any good in the first place. Either way, the plan to write a pop hit for America’s girl next door didn’t work out, and Gordy was drafted into the Army soon thereafter and shipped off to Korea.
It was upon his return from Asia that Gordy set about carving out his legacy in the music world, admittedly without the aid of Doris Day. Within a few short years, Motown was the defining sound of the American pop charts, and Gordy had a legion of legendary songwriters working for him, all of them conjuring up timeless Motown anthems that were worlds apart from the comparatively old-fashioned stylings of Doris Day.
