A Mountain Too High — Adam White

THE LATE ANDRE HARRELL’S MOTOWN CHALLENGES

Last Saturday, Berry Gordy was one of many in music (and beyond) who hailed Little Richard on his passing. “Long before he became an ardent fan of Motown,” he declared, “I had been inspired by his music and showmanship antics.”

That same day, the Motown founder also paid tribute to “my friend” Andre Harrell, another change-maker who died on May 7 at the age of 59. “I appreciated his expertise, forward thinking and the many contributions he brought to Motown after it was sold to MCA. He will be missed.”

As per obituaries in the New York Times and elsewhere, Harrell was recognised and respected for his influential role in reshaping black music in the late 1980s and ’90s. The artists of his Uptown Records – Mary J. Blige, Heavy D & the Boyz, Guy, Jodeci and more – fused component parts of rhythm & blues and hip-hop into a compelling, exciting whole. There, the two seemed to fit together, a future forged from the past.

“Andre was proof that to be a truly great cultural gatekeeper, whether as a record executive, book editor, or film producer, you have to possess a refined aesthetic that guides who you sign and how you cultivate their talent.” This, from author and filmmaker Nelson George, whose reflections on Harrell for Medium are engaging and thoughtful.

Nelson’s piece also prompted me to unearth what Berry Gordy said about Harrell in 1994. It was in the opening minutes of a Billboard interview – the publication of To Be Loved was the occasion – and we had not yet settled into the lines of questioning about his history, his career, his achievements. “There are great, young, talented people out there,” Gordy mused when I asked whether anything like Motown could be created anew, “but the business has changed so dramatically.”

And those who are shaping the change? “I’ve met people that I personally think are young, great talents. Andre Harrell, I’ve talked to him a few times. He even came by here and we talked. I found him to be extremely bright. If anyone can do it, some of these guys can do it – if it’s possible. I’m not sure it’s possible, given the times.” In hindsight, Gordy’s comments strike me as intriguing. The interview took place in August 1994, more than 12 months before Harrell was appointed as president and chief executive officer of Motown Records by its new owner, PolyGram. Gordy mentioned no other “young, great talents” to me by name. Was Harrell in line for the job even then?

When PolyGram spent $300 million to buy Motown from its venture capital owners in 1993, Gordy was made Motown’s chairman emeritus. He probably had the right to be consulted about a new president; PolyGram would not have wanted his disapproval.

Why does any of this matter a quarter-century later? It does to historians, if only because Harrell’s appointment turned out to be a costly mistake. He left Motown after less than two years, its sales in decline, its relevance questioned, and barely any new artists successfully launched. Catalogue sales remained strong – as much as 40 percent of total revenue, sparked by the CD boom – but severely in doubt was the firm’s ability to regain its footing with new talent. As Gordy himself hinted in the autumn of 1994, times had changed so much. Even for Andre Harrell, the mountain proved too high.

NEW TALENT ON THE WAY

Yet there was a time of optimism. Harrell granted me an interview soon after taking the Motown post, keen to talk about upcoming releases and new acts. Among them were Horace Brown, a former Uptown Records soul singer; 702, a female trio from Las Vegas, discovered by Michael Bivins of Boyz II Men; and male quartet Ladae from Brooklyn, previously inked elsewhere within PolyGram. Brown’s album, in particular, seemed to excite the new president, not least because it contained tracks co-produced by Sean “Puffy” Combs, whom he had mentored at Uptown.

Harrell also talked up acts already on the Motown books, including Johnny Gill (“He has a really soulful album coming”), the Whitehead Brothers and Queen Latifah. Those, plus the prospect of Motown tracks being included in the soundtrack of a new movie from highly-rated director Barry Levinson, Sleepers, starring Brad Pitt and Robert De Niro. “We’re going to put Boyz II Men on it, and probably a lot of catalogue music, and hopefully we’ll be able to introduce a couple of new artists.”

***Dre and Diana at the Motown Cafe, New York***

When asked whether the new Motown would focus on the U.S. market before the rest of the world, Harrell replied, “I’m thinking about the world agenda and the pop agenda. The one thing about Motown is that you have to make music for everybody. So I’m paying attention to pop culture all over the world.”

In light of Motown’s past, it was this answer which particularly caught my attention. Given that one of 1995’s biggest-selling singles globally had been Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” – based on Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise” – is there, I asked, a way to get Stevie to have hits like that? How do Motown’s heritage artists relate to modern times?

“It’s not so much that the music isn’t up to date or up to speed with what’s going on,” said Harrell. “A lot has to do with the positioning and the launch. Stevie is a potential soundtrack artist, for a whole soundtrack. Diana Ross can launch an LP with a major TV special and tour. With big-name artists, you take them to a place only they can go, to platform an LP’s initial release. To compete with how [radio] formats are teen-orientated, for the active record buyer, you have to make that artist and that album an event, bring attention to it in a grand way.

“Motown, to me, wouldn’t feel like Motown without stars like Stevie or Diana. As a matter of fact, I just re-signed the Four Tops. And Berry has asked me if I’d be interested in him executive-producing a new Smokey Robinson album. I said I would. So we have the Tempts, the Tops, Stevie and Diana. To bring back Smokey would be the next step. I just saw him perform on the VH-1 awards – he was vibrant.”

PLATFORMING THE SUPERSTARS

Again in retrospect, some of these comments are interesting. One of Wonder’s most popular projects of the last ten years has been his Songs In The Key of Life “event”: performing the entire 1976 album in concert in Los Angeles on several separate occasions, then taking it on tour at home and abroad. This did not present new music, admittedly, but it was certainly “platformed” to wide acclaim.

Other Harrell remarks amounted to little. Did anything come of the Four Tops rejoining Motown (for the second time)? Was music ever released? As for Diana, her Take Me Higher album went to market only days before Harrell became president – its U.S. chart performance then proved disappointing – and her next appeared only after his departure. The same applied to the Temptations: For Lovers Only was released as the new chief executive was sworn in, and its followup, Phoenix Rising, appeared after he was gone.

Motown’s most successful act of the ’90s was Boyz II Men, signed under Jheryl Busby, Harrell’s predecessor. Andre admitted to me that the group had concerns about the company’s regime change. “If it was me and the team that had made me successful was no longer there, and a new team was coming in, I figure it would create a little uncertainty, until the [new] team is complete and there’s success.” Yet it seems that the relationship never warmed up. The only Boyz II Men album released under Harrell was The Remix Collection; their next, Evolution, was shipped after his exit.

For every music executive who takes on new responsibilities, there are expectations: those of his boss, his team, his industry peers, his competitors. Early on, Harrell didn’t help himself by promoting his Motown appointment with extravagant trade-press advertising and a stream of media interviews. “That $200,000 campaign was stupid,” his friend and contemporary, Russell Simmons, told USA Today, “and it put a target on his back.”

Another complication was that under PolyGram, Motown’s chairman of the board, Clarence Avant, was not a fan. “Andre and I didn’t get along,” he told Variety in 2016. Pointing to an image of Motown boy band 98 Degrees, Avant went on, “Andre wanted to send these white boys to Harlem to try to make ’em sound black. I was like, ‘You’re out of your fucking mind.’ ”

The two men even clashed physically. “One time, Andre and I got into an argument and I took a swing at him,” recalled Avant. “He and I are friends now, because I don’t want to stay mad at anybody. But I did swing at the motherfucker.”

None of that would have mattered had Harrell delivered for Motown the hits on the scale he achieved at Uptown. But he knew of the risks going in. “The president of Uptown could do a lot of things that would go with very little concern,” he told me back in 1996, “or might even be deemed as cool. But the president of Motown puts on a totally different uniform, and you’re very conscious of that. I wouldn’t say it’s intimidating, but I will say it’s interesting.

“When you’re president of this big monster, you’ve got to make quicker decisions, and get the music out. You have to get to a base of successful artists, then you can really take your time, and go into the kitchen and put in a little more pepper and salt.”

Music notes: this week’s West Grand Blog playlist contains a cross-section of tracks from Andre Harrell’s time as Motown president, by the likes of Horace Brown, 702 and Boyz II Men. A number of the acts who were on its artist roster then are missing in action today, at least as far as digital music services are concerned; they include Detroit’s Valerie George (“Being Single” was her modest R&B hit) and New York’s Ladae (“Party 2 Nite” was the quartet’s highest charting track). Fortunately, you can find them elsewhere, as linked.