Motown: The Sound of Young America – in pictures

Diana Ross and Berry Gordy backstage at Finsbury Park Astoria, London, for the opening of the Tamla-Motown UK tour, March 1965.

Founded in Detroit in 1959, Motown Records produced more US No 1 hits than the Beatles, Elvis, the Stones and the Beach Boys combined. New book Motown: The Sound of Young America (£39.95 Thames & Hudson) collects behind-the-scenes and unpublished pictures of stars Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross and many more.

Barney Ales bestows gold discs on Marvin Gaye for I Heard it Through theGrapevine.

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The History of Motown Records

By Christina Pomoni
Motown Records has been, admittedly, one of the largest and most successful independent record labels in the history of music. Founded by Berry Gordy Jr., an inspirational and insightful leader, who assembled a diligent group of musicians, producers, songwriters, and artists, Motown has changed the sound of music in the 1960s, not only in the United States, but also around the globe.

Founded in 1959 in Detroit, Motown was the equivalent of the Big Three in automobile industry. Being, in effect, a manufacturer of pop music, Motown has gathered the soul and pop classics that altered America. Although it was owned by an African-American and focused on the social problems of the black communities, it gave white America a wonderful, romantic, grooving, moving, and exuberating music.

Unlike other successful labels of that time such as Island Records, Warner Bros Records, or Epic Records, Motown associated music with black civil rights movement and managed to bridge the gap of racial discrimination by producing music that appealed to all people, regardless of the color of their skin.

Berry Gordy Jr., a former professional boxer, Korean War veteran and automobile worker was a promising songwriter when he took the decision to establish Motown Records. Under the urging of Smokey Robinson, a prominent songwriter and producer and founding member of the Miracles (at that time known as The Matadors), Gordy began building a portfolio of talented artists.
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Motown turns 50, but the party's far from over

By MIKE HOUSEHOLDER and JEFF KAROUB, Associated Press Writers
DETROIT – On Jan. 12, 1959, Elvis Presley was in the Army. The Beatles were a little-known group called The Quarrymen casting about for gigs in Liverpool. The nascent rock 'n' roll world was a few weeks away from "the day the music died" — when a single-engine plane crash claimed the lives of Buddy Holly, J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson and Ritchie Valens. It's also the day a 29-year-old boxer, assembly line worker and songwriter named Berry Gordy Jr. used an $800 family loan to start a record company in Detroit. Fifty years later, Motown Records Corp. and its stable of largely African-American artists have become synonymous with the musical, social and cultural fabric of America. The company spawned household names, signature grooves and anthems for the boulevard and bedroom alike that transcended geography and race.

And time.
Motown may be 50 years old, but it isn't any less relevant with current hitmakers — from Taylor Swift to Coldplay — citing the label's signature "sound" as an influence. Would there be a Beyonce or Mariah Carey had Diana Ross, Martha Reeves and Gladys Knight not come first?
How about Kanye West and Justin Timberlake? What would have become of their musical careers had Motown not blazed a trail with the likes of Michael Jackson, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations and The Four Tops?
"There were just so many amazing artists that came through. It was such a surge," said singer-songwriter Jewel, whose recently released collection of original lullabies includes Motown influences. "And it really informed The Beatles' melodies. So much of what pop music and popular culture became. I recommend everybody go back and look at those melodies and see where they find them today, because they're resurfacing and being remixed, basically, into new pop songs."

From its founding in 1959 to a much-debated move to Los Angeles 13 years later, what has become known as "classic Motown" created a once-in-a-lifetime sound that was local and global, black and white, gritty and gorgeous, commercial and creative, Saturday night and Sunday morning. "I Heard it Through the Grapevine." "My Girl." "The Tears of a Clown." Like the two-sided singles the Motown factory churned out 24 hours a day, seven days a week at Studio A inside the Hitsville, U.S.A., building at 2648 West Grand Boulevard, Motown Records in the 1960s stood out from the musical pack — and still does today — because of its ability to tune the tension between two opposing forces.
The Associated Press, on the occasion of Motown's 50th, invited both Motown greats and heavyweights from the worlds of music and beyond to discuss how the legendary Detroit musical movement's sound, style, savvy and sensuality have stood the test of time.
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