Hitsville's Daughters and Sons

ON RHONDA, REDFOO, ‘ROBIN HOOD’ AND MORE

What have actor Michael Douglas, tennis champ Victoria Azarenka, media mogul James Murdoch (yes, son of Rupert) and the late, great Nelson Mandela in common?

Quite simply, all have been associated, at one time or another, with the offspring of Motown’s finest. And so this edition of West Grand Blog will be charting those particular connections – to Nona Gaye, Stefan Gordy, Alonzo Stevenson and Stevie Wonder, respectively – as well as others of a similar nature.

Today, the most visible daughters of Motown are Rhonda Ross, produced by Berry Gordy and Diana Ross, and Tracee Ellis Ross, A&R’ed by Diana and her first husband, Bob Ellis. Until the coronavirus arrested the live entertainment business, Rhonda was the opening act for her mother’s 2020 concert tour of North America, with a setlist which included tracks from her own 2016 album, In Case You Didn’t Know.

***Rhonda and Diana (photo: Austin Montier)***

Earlier this month, Rhonda spoke about her parents in Forbes. “For some reason,” she said, “I was given a feeling that what was in them was also within me. I was able to do it my way. I didn’t have to copy them or try to be the second coming of them.” Even so, the singer mirrors the pair. In Case You Didn’t Know not only offers a style shaped by her mother’s, but also contains repertoire written by Rhonda, suggesting the influence of her father’s past as a songwriter.

Several years ago, Diana’s eldest visited Detroit to take part in “Motown Edu,” a summer camp organised by the Motown Museum. Rhonda spoke to students about her upbringing, and cited her father’s favourite poem, If by Rudyard Kipling. “I don’t know it by heart – my father made his children who lived with him do that – but I can quote some lines,” she said in a Detroit News report. “My father also believed you should always learn from your mistakes, but you should also learn from the mistakes of others.”

Tracee, meanwhile, has become one of the most successful actresses of her generation, largely due to six seasons of TV sitcom Black-ish. Her role in the hit show has earned her Golden Globe and Emmy awards, and news of its renewal for a seventh season is expected any day. Asked once whether she had any trepidation about going into the entertainment business, Tracee replied, “No. Maybe if I sang.” Laughing at that point, she added, “I just consciously went in a different direction.”

Other Gordy offspring have taken their turns in music. Kennedy, the Motown founder’s son by Margaret Norton, scored a global hit in 1984 as Rockwell with “Somebody’s Watching Me,” juiced by Michael Jackson’s background vocals. (Jackson’s own children will not figure in this blog post. Please forgive.)

A FANATIC FOR TENNIS

Stefan, Berry Gordy’s son by Nancy Leiviska, captured the public’s imagination in 2011-12 as Redfoo, one-half of the “Party Rock Anthem” and “Sexy And I Know It” hitmakers billed as LMFAO. After that, he went solo and enjoyed life as a judge on the Australian edition of The X Factor. Stefan is also known for a passion for tennis, which included a romantic relationship with Victoria Azarenka, the former world singles Number One. “My father has a tennis court at his home in Bel Air,” he told Forbes, “and I was always watching him on the tennis court, he was a fanatic. I started playing seriously around ninth grade.”

Like his half-brother Kennedy, Kerry Gordy’s stint as a recording artist began at Motown: he was a member of Apollo, whose 1979 debut album was produced by his mother (and Berry Gordy’s second wife), Ray Singleton. Soon enough, though, Kerry was drawn to the backrooms of the business, working in A&R at Prince’s Paisley Park operation, then as vice president of black music A&R for Warner Bros. Records. He subsequently diversified into TV and film; in recent years, he has been active in copyright termination and recapture, enjoying a nickname as “Robin Hood” in that sector.

By contrast, Sherry Gordy, Berry’s daughter by the late Jeana Jackson, spent much of her early working life in real estate, managing companies for others, then forming her own. “After that,” she told the Las Vegas Sun, “my father offered me the opportunity to shadow him for a few years. During this time, I learned so much, including philanthropy, which became my passion and made me realise that I wanted to make a positive difference in the lives of others.” This led to the formation of the Sherry Jackson Foundation. Lately, after a spell presenting entertainers of every type in cabaret in Las Vegas, she joined the team working on the expansion of the Motown Museum. All roads, it seems, lead back to Detroit.

Marvin Gaye was another parent bonded to the Gordy clan: he and wife Anna (Berry’s sister) adopted a son, Marvin Gaye III, whose mother was the daughter of George Gordy (Berry’s brother). And if you’re still with me, let’s note that after Marvin left Anna, he begat two children, Nona and Frankie, with his muse, Janis Hunter.

Marvin III ventured into music – one track from 2013, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” can be found on YouTube – and was even said to have recorded an (unissued) album with the son of Lou Rawls. Nona’s music career proved more visible, and that’s where Michael Douglas comes in: one of his business ventures was Third Stone Records, to which she was signed for her 1992 album debut, Love For The Future. It was recorded in California, and supervised by Douglas’ label partner, Dick Rudolph. The first single, “I’m Overjoyed,” reached the Top 20 of the Billboard R&B charts.

Subsequently, Nona spent time in Prince’s orbit, recording a variety of tracks for Paisley Park, then graduated into acting with roles in Ali and the back-to-back sequels of The Matrix. More recently, she, brother Frankie and mother Jan have been in the public eye because of their copyright infringement battle over Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams’ “Blurred Lines” and its debt to Marvin Gaye’s “Got To Give It Up.” The much-publicised litigation took years to resolve, ultimately rewarding the Gaye family with more than $5 million in damages, and ongoing royalties.

A NOVEL SURPRISE FOR MICKEY

That Marvin only had three children seems, in retrospect, like a model of restraint when compared to the twelve sons and daughters of Motown’s first A&R man, William “Mickey” Stevenson. Of those, it’s his son Alonzo (aka Mario) who most evidently followed his father into the music business, under the name of Novel. “I was completely surprised,” wrote Stevenson in his autobiography, The A&R Man. “I’d never seen him write or heard him sing anything. I didn’t even know he could whistle.”

Nonetheless, the onetime Motown maestro helped Novel to develop his talent and secure a deal circa 2003 with Rawkus Records, the label in which James Murdoch had a financial stake. In his early twenties, the young Stevenson cut an album’s worth of material, but as Rawkus ran into ructions with its distributor, MCA, this never appeared. Novel subsequently recorded for Dallas Austin’s Rowdy rodeo, then went on to juggle a remarkable career as a writer (with his material cut by Alicia Keys, David Guetta, Leona Lewis and Trombone Shorty, among others) as well as an artist. His latest album: Somewhere Off In A Quiet Corner, was released last year.

“When I see kids making albums just because their parents did it or whatever,” Novel reflected several years ago, “I don’t totally agree with it.” His father, it seems, was a hard taskmaster. “He still helps me out with advice, but other than that, we are just father and son. It made us a lot closer.”

Others will agree with that assessment. Ray Ruffin, the son of Jimmy, talked about the pressure of expectation when he began his career as a singer in London, where his father had moved to live. The son of the Temptations’ David Ruffin had a similar burden, while a different kind of expectation – sharing in the royalties due to a deceased parent – tormented the family of another member of the group, Paul Williams. “Money, ugh,” his son Paul Jr. told the Detroit News in 2011 in a depressing report about the legal battles over those royalty divisions. “What money does to people, I don’t understand.”

NINE FROM FIVE

By contrast, the substantial, extended family of Stevie Wonder – he has nine children from five partners – doesn’t appear to have been troubled, despite his considerable wealth, or perhaps because of it. His fatherhood certainly started on a cheerful note, with the cries of first-born Aisha forever captured in “Isn’t She Lovely,” one of the most memorable tracks of his biggest-selling album, Songs In The Key of Life. She is Wonder’s daughter by Yolanda Simmons, and has remained close to père not only as a family member, but also professionally, singing as a member of his touring band for years. And on A Time To Love, Wonder’s last studio album – a mere 15 years ago – Aisha was featured on two tracks, “How Will I Know” and “Positivity.”

The first child of Stevie (and mother Melody McCulley) to secure his own recording deal was Mumtaz, signed to Universal Music Japan in 2010. This was the result of the youngster posting his music on MySpace three years earlier, including tracks such as “Relapse” and “Save Me From Myself.” The company aggressively touted his made-in-Japan debut single, “Step On It,” as a digital release, but it didn’t resonate worldwide.

***Stevie and Aisha (isn’t she lovely?)***

“My dad is a tough critic,” Mumtaz told Las Vegas Black Image at the time. “He initially didn’t want me to go into music because he didn’t want people to tear me apart.” The superstar subsequently gave his son feedback, but “he is very careful not to get too involved, and I understand why. He has never pushed me into a musical direction – it is just something I wandered into.”

Meanwhile, Mumtaz’s half-brothers are wandering into music and fashion. They are 18-year-old Kailand and 14-year-old Mandla, Wonder’s sons by fashion designer Kai Morris. Last year, Kailand interned in Paris under the creative director of Dior Men’s. It was “incredibly hard work,” he told GQ. “I came home every night exhausted, with white gloves in my back pocket, because we had to wear them to handle the clothes.”

Mandla is developing as a singer and TV personality, recently competing on Dancing With the Stars: Juniors. His father was on stage during one appearance, singing “Isn’t She Lovely” as his son danced the foxtrot with Brightyn Brems. But this is only one of the anecdotes which the teenager can share with friends in years to come. Another? Well, that involved the late Nelson Mandela. “Nelson called the hospital after he was born,” Kai Morris told the Daily Telegraph in 2012, “and said, ‘I want to name your child.’ What do you say to that? You say OK. He gave us two names, one of which we couldn’t pronounce. So we chose Mandla.”

Stevie Wonder divorced Kai Morris eight years ago, but that reportedly did not prevent Kailand or Mandla – or his previous children – from serving as groomsmen and bridesmaids when he married Tomeeka Bracy, his third wife, in 2017. He and Bracy have two children together. Care to place bets on their choice of career path in the decades ahead?

Music notes: this week’s West Grand playlist features various vocal styles across a range of moods and tempos. And don’t forget the links above to tracks by Marvin Gaye III and Mumtaz Morris (or Mumtaz Wonder, as he was when “Step On It” was released). Unfortunately, Apollo’s album doesn’t appear to be available on digital music services, so you’ll have to check here for their “Astro Disco.” The charm of Tracee Ellis Ross, meanwhile, can be heard in at least a couple of podcasts, including one this year from Net-A-Porter, “celebrating women and the power of fashion.” Finally, with such Motown-evocative names as Berry and Tamla, it’s a shame that the offspring of Smokey and Claudette Robinson don’t seem to have made any music. But I’m ready to be corrected…