Post by Emerald City on Sept 27, 2006 19:06:33 GMT -5
Berry Gordy's book, 'To Be Loved,' tells how he shaped lives of
Motown stars
Jet, Nov 21, 1994 by Robert E. Johnson
Motown music mogul Berry Gordy, who parlayed the formula "create, make, sell and collect" into a Detroit money-making music factory called Hitsville, U.S.A., reveals in his autobiography, To Be Loved: The Music, The Magic, The Memories of Motown (Warner Books, New York, N.Y., $22.95), how he transformed aspiring artists into inimitable icons.
In one of the frankest books yet penned by a celebrity, the former featherweight boxer who abandoned his ring ambitions to pursue a career in music, tells some titillating stories about how he entered the recording business in 1959 and shaped the lives of Motown superstars, including singers Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson.
Before he became a transformer of poor inner-city children who made magic and music at Motown, Gordy, following his service in Korea as a chaplain's assistant who played the organ and drove the chaplain to the front line of battle, went through many career changes.
Seeking to follow in the footsteps of his idol, former heavyweight boxing champ Joe Louis, Gordy fought 15 fights--ten wins, two draws and three losses. One day, after a rigorous workout in Detroit's Woodward Avenue Gym, the diminutive (5 ft. 6 in.) dynamo was headed for the locker room when he saw a poster advertising a battle of bands between Duke Ellington and Stan Kenton. The poster below advertised a bout between two boxers.
"I stared at the posters," Gordy writes. "There it was again; boxing versus music...I then noticed the fighters were about twenty-three and looked fifty; the bandleaders about fifty and looked twenty-three...That day I took off my gloves for good."
The best thing that happened to Gordy before launching his recording company was meeting William "Smokey" Robinson, a talented Detroit-born songwriter. Their collaboration ushered in a new concept for producing records and stars.
"I wanted a place where a kid off the street could walk in one door an
unknown and come out another a recording artist--a star," said the 64-year-old music magnate who broke down racial barriers in the recording industry and established the Motown sound. Gordy defines that sound with six words: "rats, roaches, struggle, talent, guts and love."
No one at Motown exhibited more all-around talent than Robinson. He and Gordy co-composed Shop Around, Motown's first million seller.
When Robinson went on the first Motown Revue as lead singer for The Miracles in 1962, Gordy showed up at the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C., where Robinson thrilled and dazzled the crowd at a sold-out show.
Gordy made a surprise visit backstage where, he said, "a mob of girls swarmed around and started fighting to get near Smokey ... I was swallowed up by a sea of female bodies...This was the first time I had seen this kind of mania...It was the first time it had happened for one of my artists, someone I had developed..."
No aspiring artist who went through Motown's assembly line approach brought more acclaim, controversy and gossip than Diana Ross and her relationship with Gordy.
To Be Loved deals with Gordy's unabashed honesty in discussing his worst-kept secret: the personal and passionate relationship with Ross. With unbelievable honesty, he writes of his topsy-turvy love life with the then skinny, impish singer who walked out of an inner-city housing project into Motown's Hitsville U.S.A., as an unknown and how his personal devotion and coaching shapped her life and made her a megastar on records, the concert stage, television and in movies.
Motown stars
Jet, Nov 21, 1994 by Robert E. Johnson
Motown music mogul Berry Gordy, who parlayed the formula "create, make, sell and collect" into a Detroit money-making music factory called Hitsville, U.S.A., reveals in his autobiography, To Be Loved: The Music, The Magic, The Memories of Motown (Warner Books, New York, N.Y., $22.95), how he transformed aspiring artists into inimitable icons.
In one of the frankest books yet penned by a celebrity, the former featherweight boxer who abandoned his ring ambitions to pursue a career in music, tells some titillating stories about how he entered the recording business in 1959 and shaped the lives of Motown superstars, including singers Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson.
Before he became a transformer of poor inner-city children who made magic and music at Motown, Gordy, following his service in Korea as a chaplain's assistant who played the organ and drove the chaplain to the front line of battle, went through many career changes.
Seeking to follow in the footsteps of his idol, former heavyweight boxing champ Joe Louis, Gordy fought 15 fights--ten wins, two draws and three losses. One day, after a rigorous workout in Detroit's Woodward Avenue Gym, the diminutive (5 ft. 6 in.) dynamo was headed for the locker room when he saw a poster advertising a battle of bands between Duke Ellington and Stan Kenton. The poster below advertised a bout between two boxers.
"I stared at the posters," Gordy writes. "There it was again; boxing versus music...I then noticed the fighters were about twenty-three and looked fifty; the bandleaders about fifty and looked twenty-three...That day I took off my gloves for good."
The best thing that happened to Gordy before launching his recording company was meeting William "Smokey" Robinson, a talented Detroit-born songwriter. Their collaboration ushered in a new concept for producing records and stars.
"I wanted a place where a kid off the street could walk in one door an
unknown and come out another a recording artist--a star," said the 64-year-old music magnate who broke down racial barriers in the recording industry and established the Motown sound. Gordy defines that sound with six words: "rats, roaches, struggle, talent, guts and love."
No one at Motown exhibited more all-around talent than Robinson. He and Gordy co-composed Shop Around, Motown's first million seller.
When Robinson went on the first Motown Revue as lead singer for The Miracles in 1962, Gordy showed up at the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C., where Robinson thrilled and dazzled the crowd at a sold-out show.
Gordy made a surprise visit backstage where, he said, "a mob of girls swarmed around and started fighting to get near Smokey ... I was swallowed up by a sea of female bodies...This was the first time I had seen this kind of mania...It was the first time it had happened for one of my artists, someone I had developed..."
No aspiring artist who went through Motown's assembly line approach brought more acclaim, controversy and gossip than Diana Ross and her relationship with Gordy.
To Be Loved deals with Gordy's unabashed honesty in discussing his worst-kept secret: the personal and passionate relationship with Ross. With unbelievable honesty, he writes of his topsy-turvy love life with the then skinny, impish singer who walked out of an inner-city housing project into Motown's Hitsville U.S.A., as an unknown and how his personal devotion and coaching shapped her life and made her a megastar on records, the concert stage, television and in movies.
