Marching into History
‘THE CONTENT OF THEIR CHARACTER’
“Although we were motivated by messianic desires to do the album,” Berry Gordy wrote on July 18, 1963, “as a business operation, we could not become involved in manufacturing an item of quality without expecting a profit.”
Now, “messianic” is not a word that one expects the founder of Motown Records to employ, given that its literal meaning relates to “a divine being who has been born, or who will be born, and who will change the world.”
BG hails MLK in the New York Times in 1986, when the civil rights leader’s birthday was first observed as a U.S. holiday
Then again, it’s arguable that the life of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. did change the world – or at least America – in significant respects. A few words of his, spoken soon after Gordy’s correspondence, are sealed into history: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
It seems right to recall this shortly after America again celebrated King’s birthday as a national holiday, and after the Motown Museum marked that with a special tour for visitors, to honour his legacy. “With the music Berry Gordy helped produce and release, his vision was the same,” said Shelia Spencer, the museum’s director, earlier this month. “To bring all people together, no matter of race, colour or creed.”
Billie Jean Brown worked at Motown in 1963, when it released two albums of King’s speeches, the first given on June 23 at a remarkable Detroit freedom rally, the second on August 28 at a historic, civil rights demonstration in the nation’s capital. Gordy was so moved by the man’s mission, recalled Brown in 2020 for the Detroit Free Press’ Brian McCollum, “that he thought it should be out there whether it made a penny or not. That was real controversial [within the company] at the time. Every record needed to make money so we could put out another one. But he was very adamant about it.”
Gordy had promised the reverend a royalty of 40 cents on each album sold, according to that July 18 letter to an official at Atlanta’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which was led by King. Plus, there was an advance of $400 against the sale of 1,000 albums. “If you investigate,” asserted the Motown boss, “I am sure that you will find this is a more than equitable arrangement. We are a growing record company and in the years since our founding, we have built a reputation for integrity and a high quality of products.” (And the business needs to make a profit.)
‘THE ALBUMS DIDN’T SELL’
Having sealed the MLK deal on August 5, 1963, his Gordy label issued The Great March To Freedom on August 27, and The Great March On Washington on October 8. When the second LP appeared, the firm pitched it to retailers via a 30-day “special offer” wholesale price of $1.80. (Its suggested list price was $4.98.) With the first album, it offered dealers a free copy for every ten ordered.
“The interesting thing is that, at that time, the albums didn’t sell,” Barney Ales, who was then Motown’s sales chief, once told me. “Whether they didn’t sell because of the [political] atmosphere, or because of the distributors, who basically were white, it just didn’t sell.”
Berry presents Dr. King with his first Motown album, with Lena Horne and Billy Taylor in Atlanta
“Berry said to me, ‘You’ve got to put up 100,000 copies.’ I told him there was no way in the world that my distributors were going to sell 100,000 of this. He said, ‘Well, what are you going to do?’ I said, being nice, ‘20,000.’ It probably was 10,000, we probably got 5,000 back.”
Ales added, “You have to know the market, the neighbourhood. Aside from the white distributors, what about the white rackjobbers? First of all, there’s Handleman in Detroit. Let’s say they have 1,000 racks [non-music retail outlets which Handleman stocked with “racks” of records]. Probably 200 of them were in the black neighbourhoods. You’re talking about ten copies per rack. That’s around 2,000 copies overall in Detroit. That’s what I tried to explain. You must be intelligent in what you’re dealing with.”
Billie Jean Brown later acknowledged the reality, too. “I think we probably ended up giving away more than we sold,” she told the Detroit Free Press, “to various organisations and others. I’m sure there are many junior high and high schools in Detroit that still have it as part of their archive library, donated by us.”
If the firm’s royalty payments to the SCLC were modest, the releases nevertheless represented the first time that Motown had visibly aligned itself with the civil rights movement. Part of that was the now-familiar occasion when Berry Gordy presented the Detroit album to King at an SCLC benefit concert on August 20, 1963 in Atlanta, in the company of singer Lena Horne and pianist/songwriter Billy Taylor.
AN ALBUM IN EVERY HOME?
While in the city, Gordy told those at the SCLC event that King’s address at the Detroit rally would be the first in a series of such albums. “In his speech, Revered King intelligently and succinctly explains the Negro revolt, underlines its ramifications and points the way to certain solutions,” he said. “This album belongs in the home of every American and should be required listening for every American child, white or black.”
Even so, the album series which Gordy trailed took another seven years to materialise via a new Motown imprint, Black Forum. One of those affiliated with this project was Junius Griffin, who had previously worked for Dr. King, after a career as an award-winning journalist. In October 1970, Black Forum released Why I Oppose The War In Vietnam, the recording of a controversial 1967 speech delivered by King – which earned Motown’s second Grammy award in 1971.
Dr. King at Detroit’s Cobo Hall, June 23, 1963
Thus, the Motown Museum had lots of information and detail to share this past week during its January 20 celebration of the MLK legacy. And there’s more still, including…
The sound engineer who recorded The Great March To Freedom was attorney Milton Henry, a local Detroit rights activist. The Great March On Washington was recorded by storied Motown engineer, Lawrence Horn, named on the LP sleeve – a rare credit for one of its studio team.
The Great March To Freedom was the first Motown album with a gatefold sleeve. The centrefold used a striking image of the thousands who walked down Detroit’s Woodward Avenue on June 23, 1963. The cover concept was the work of the company’s in-house designer, Bernard Yeszin.
The second King album included Motown artist Liz Lands, singing the civil rights anthem, “We Shall Overcome,” which she had cut in early September. It was to have been released as a single on Motown’s gospel label, Divinity, then on Gordy – but neither came out at the time. Coupled with an excerpt from MLK’s “I Have A Dream,” it eventually appeared as a 45 on April 8, 1968.
Sleeve notes for The Great March On Washington were written by Detroit journalist Lee Ivory, who later authored liners for albums by Marvin Gaye and Mary Wells. Years later, Ivory became publicly critical of what he saw as Motown’s preferential treatment of white journalists and broadcasters over their black counterparts.
Days after issuing The Great March On Washington in October ‘63, Motown was sued (along with two other record companies) by MLK for the album’s unauthorised use of his “I Have A Dream” speech. This reputedly occurred because one of King’s lawyers did not realise Motown had been given clearance; the company was swiftly dropped from the suit.
In March 2020, Universal Music/Motown released The Great March On Washington as a digital album for purchase and/or streaming. That August, King’s “I Have A Dream” speech was made available as a stand-alone digital single.
Two books which chronicle Motown’s 1960s relationship with King in detail and context are recommended, namely, Suzanne E. Smith’s Dancing In The Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit (1999) and David Maraniss’ Once In A Great City: A Detroit Story (2015).
Finally, let’s close with a recollection from Berry Gordy, made to Forbes magazine in 2017. “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to see me in Detroit at the peak of the civil rights era. And I was, of course, honoured. He said, ‘What I’m trying to do politically and intellectually, you’re doing with your music. I love the feeling people get when they hear your music. And so maybe we can make a deal.”
Evidently, they did.