Long Ago and Far Away

AN EARLY GORDY INTERVIEW, A HINT OF THE MUSEUM

Berry Gordy tried to sign Eartha Kitt?

      That’s a nugget of information which has never been noted – to my knowledge, at least – in the Motown history books. It’s certainly not in the founder’s autobiography.

      Yet in a mid-1963 press interview given to Dick Kleiner of the Newspaper Enterprise Association (a news syndicate), Gordy revealed that he was negotiating to record Kitt – and Diahann Carroll, too. With the former, there was never a deal done; with the latter, he eventually did ink the singer/actress, and she released one Motown album in 1974.

The young ones in Studio A: Smokey Robinson, Berry Gordy (photo: TGC Management)

      The syndicated article was also notable for being one of the few general-media interviews Gordy did before the Supremes’ breakthrough changed so much at Motown the following year. “Being in Detroit is a big help to us,” he told Kleiner. “The only drawback is the lack of arrangers and copyists. But we get the pick of Detroit artists, who would rather record for a hometown company, and we get a break with the local DJs, which helps us get the records off to a fast start.”

      Just a few weeks earlier, Gordy did another Q&A, this time with air personality Trudy Haynes of black-owned WCHB-AM of Inkster, one of the nation’s leading R&B stations. There, he also spoke about his hometown. “As a rule, the people of Detroit know very little about what is going on here [at Motown]. We don’t do any advertising or anything, because we have a worldwide business. Detroit is only part of the revenue that we see.”

      The ’CHB session was not particularly probing, but interesting as another example of Gordy’s pre-1964 interviews. Haynes was women’s editor at the station, mostly curious on this occasion about the people and departments within the three buildings which Motown then operated on West Grand.

      Gordy put the headcount in the region of 50-60, and began a run-through of the team, kicking off with his head of A&R. “This is handled by the very famous and popular Mickey Stevenson, who has a gun on me at the present time.” [Haynes laughs] “He runs the department, he has several producers…and A&R personnel in there that are basically responsible for the records being cut.”

      The Motown chieftain then identified Brian Holland, Norman Whitfield, Clarence Paul (“assistant A&R director”) and Lamont Dozier. “And there’s George Gordy and Bob Gordy, and another guy, Bob Hamilton, who has been doing some very good things for us. Also, Bill ‘Smokey’ Robinson, who is the lead singer of the Miracles, has produced all of the top Mary Wells hit records. And he has produced all of his own records of late, and he’s quite a producer.”

THE FAMOUS FIVE

      When asked about Motown’s earliest days, Gordy offered the now-familiar family motif, detailing the “nucleus” of the organisation. “It’s made up of about five people,” he explained. “They started with the organisation for almost no money, and they worked and they sang and so forth. That was Ray Gordy, my former wife and vice president of all the corporations here, who has just set up the Jobete Music Corporation offices in New York.

      “Also, Smokey Robinson, who’s the leader of the Miracles. Brian van Holland” – Gordy actually used that form of the name, which the writer/producer briefly deployed to make him sound sophisticated – “who’s the brother of Eddie Holland, the singer. Mike Ossman, who’s Ray’s brother, and Janie Bradford is also one of the family members. These people we consider the Motown family. However, since that time…several people have been here for several years, and they are also included in the Hitsville family. We have a close organisation here.” (In Robinson’s autobiography, he, too, identifies Motown’s “first five,” but singer/engineer Robert Bateman is named instead of Ossman.)

Family members (from left) Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland, Janie Bradford and Ray Gordy at a BMI event

      With Haynes, Gordy went on to name-check Quality Control (“headed by Miss Billie Jean Brown and Mrs. Elaine Blackwell”) and International Talent Management, Inc. under Esther Edwards, “which has the Motortown Revue on the road, and it’s been breaking records throughout the country.” In addition, he cited the sales team under Barney Ales, who had “come in with Irv Biegel, Phil Jones and just a great many people that are really pushing the organisation from a sales standpoint.”

      It made sense that the Motown chieftain would talk to WCHB. Station DJs Joltin’ Joe Howard and Larry Dixon were key figures in the record company’s development, playing its first releases and supporting Gordy’s ambitions. What he may not have expected was Trudy Haynes’ admiration. “Do you realise what you have done?” she asked. “How many people have worked here, gained this experience? It’s been all these years that Negroes have not really gotten into the heart of the business, and you have afforded this opportunity for so many. And I was so impressed to find out that most of your staff is made up of young people.”

      “Yes, well, I feel that if a person is capable, it doesn’t make any difference what age they are,” replied Gordy. “In fact, Smokey Robinson proved that to me, because at 19 and 18, he was quite a businessman. I’m so very happy because he and his wonderful wife, Claudette, who also sang in the Miracles, are presently moving into their fabulous home on Outer Drive, and I’m so very happy and proud of them.”

      Gordy then identified other acts on the Motown roster: Marvin Gaye, the Marvelettes, the Contours, the Supremes, the Vandellas, the Temptations, “and the Four Tops, who have just done a terrific album that we’re releasing and we have great hopes for. And, of course, I can’t forget Little Stevie Wonder, who has perhaps the biggest smash in Detroit at the present time, with his ‘Fingertips Part 2.’ ”

      Indeed, Wonder’s single was prevalent on the Motor City airwaves and beginning to break beyond, with pop stations in West Virginia, California and Ohio adding it to their playlists. Its eventual climb to the top of the charts helped turn 1963 into Motown’s best year to date – although Gordy might not have imagined that when speaking to WCHB. The firm also scored three Top 10 pop hits on the Billboard Hot 100 (two by Martha & the Vandellas, one by the Miracles) during the year’s second half, while another four 45s reached the Top 30, including the Supremes’ first such success.

BREAKING THROUGH, BUT LATER

      To Haynes, Gordy enthused about the Four Tops, signed less than two months earlier. “[They] have been known throughout the years for their great singing ability and stage performance,” he said, “and they haven’t ever been captured on record truly before. They are currently one of the hottest groups around the country performance-wise. I mean, they can sing anything, but basically they have been singing modern blues and jazz and pop-type things, and so we’re cutting them on some other things that they do in nightclubs. And some of the more commercial type things. We’re very fortunate in having signed them.”

Unreleased in 1963

      By that point, Mickey Stevenson had already produced sessions with the Tops in Studio A, intended for inclusion in their Breaking Through long-player on Motown’s Workshop Jazz label. A couple of weeks after the ’CHB interview, they also cut material at Detroit’s Graystone Ballroom, which Gordy had just acquired. (The album never made it to retail, and may never even have been pressed; the recordings finally emerged via Motown’s “Lost and Found” CD series in 1999.)

      And so Gordy’s time with Trudy Haynes came to an end, although not before he provided more details of his company’s international expansion. “Through our trip overseas, we visited and closed deals in England, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland and Italy, Scandinavia. And we just closed a deal presently in Japan and Australia.” Oddly, he didn’t mention the risk taken when using a video camera during a side trip to Soviet-occupied East Berlin.

      From today’s perspective, the other notable aspect of the interview was its hint at what would come to pass at 2648 West Grand, decades later. “Do you ever have tours here?” Haynes asked Gordy. “Berry, Hitsville U.S.A. should be quite an inspiration, not only to your staff, but to the people who I hope will come by and see [it] on occasion. This might frighten you a little bit, because I know that your studios are always occupied and you have a lot of business to take care of here. But I can’t resist the temptation to invite them to contact your secretary and at some time during the year, make it a point to see Hitsville U.S.A. and really see the inside, the workings at the core.

      “Because it’s a business, and it’s operated as a business or we wouldn’t be here. [But] as I said before, it certainly is an inspiration to see so many people having an opportunity to work at things they can use for the rest of their lives.”

      Amen, Trudy, amen.

Q&A notes (with thanks to Susan Whitall): Berry Gordy’s 1963 interviewer had interesting credentials of her own. New York-born Trudy Haynes was a graduate of Howard University (where Esther Edwards also studied) and worked as a model before moving into media. She was at WCHB Inkster from 1956-63, then is said to have become the nation’s first African-American weather reporter when hired by WXYZ-TV in Detroit. In later years at Philadelphia’s KYW-TV, she became known for her distinctive interview style. During a celebrity roast to mark Haynes’ 25 years at the station, singer Billy (“Me And Mrs. Jones”) Paul said she was “the only reporter who ever asked me in front of my wife of 25 years, ‘Who is Mrs. Jones?’ ”

Music notes: the first half of ‘63 is somewhat overshadowed by its second half (“Mickey’s Monkey,” “Fingertips – Pt. 2,” “Heat Wave,” “Can I Get A Witness,” “When The Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes”) but has its share of hits, as evidenced in this WGB playlist. The selection also includes an early Workshop Jazz single by Paula Greer – Trudy Haynes name-checked her during the Gordy interview – and a track from the Four Tops’ album for the label, namely, “When I’m Alone I Cry,” one of the few Jobete songs in the package. Plus, a track co-written and co-produced by Bob Hamilton, whom Gordy hailed: “There He Goes” by the Velvelettes. And one other non-hit in the playlist is the Temptations’ “Farewell My Love,” which Haynes heard when she was visiting Hitsville and observed the group’s vocals being dubbed onto the track.

WCHB notes: two of the broadcaster’s backroom team worked with Motown during their professional careers. The first was Frank Seymour, who had been the station’s general manager; he was appointed executive assistant to Berry Gordy in May 1965. By August, the lifelong Christian Scientist had quit to set up his own PR firm. “The relationship was friendly,” he said at the time, “but I soon learned that show business was not my cup of tea.” The other WCHB alumni known to Motown was Ofield Dukes, the station’s onetime news director, who secured the record company as the first client of his newly-formed PR agency in Washington, D.C. in 1969. He had extensive political connections, having advised Democratic vice president Hubert Humphrey, among others. Dukes worked with Stevie Wonder on the campaign to have Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday become a national U.S. holiday.