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Motown Records is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. It was founded by Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on January 12, 1959, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau of motor and town, has become a nickname for Detroit, where the label was originally headquartered.
Berry Gordy III, known professionally as Berry Gordy Jr., is an American former record executive, record producer, songwriter, film producer and television producer. He is best known as the founder of the Motown record label and its subsidiaries, which was the highest-earning African-American business for decades.
Holland–Dozier–Holland was a songwriting and production team made up of Lamont Dozier and brothers Brian and Eddie Holland. The trio wrote, arranged and produced many songs that helped define the Motown sound in the 1960s. During their tenure at Motown Records from 1962 to 1967, Dozier and Brian Holland were the composers and producers for each song, and Eddie Holland wrote the lyrics and arranged the vocals. Their most celebrated productions were singles for the Four Tops and the Supremes, including 10 out of the Supremes' 12 US No. 1 singles, such as "Baby Love", "Stop! In the Name of Love", and "You Keep Me Hangin' On".
Barrett Strong is an American singer and songwriter. Strong was the first artist to record a hit for Motown, although he is best known for his work as a songwriter, particularly in association with producer Norman Whitfield. Among his most famous work at Motown, Strong wrote the lyrics for many of the songs recorded by the Temptations.
Christine Elizabeth Clark, better known as Chris Clark, is an American soul, jazz, and blues singer, who recorded for Motown Records. Clark became known to Northern Soul fans for hit songs such as 1965's "Do Right Baby Do Right" and 1966's "Love's Gone Bad" (Holland-Dozier-Holland). She later co-wrote the screenplay for the 1972 motion picture Lady Sings the Blues starring Diana Ross, which earned Clark an Academy Award nomination.
Marvin Gaye at the Copa is a live album recorded at the exclusive New York club, the Copacabana, where singer Marvin Gaye performed in August 1966, over a year following The Supremes' ballyhooed 1965 performance there. Marvin was only one of just a few R&B musicians after Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson to perform at the club where performers such as Sammy Davis, Jr., Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra had performed at regularly. Marvin was the second act from Berry Gordy's fabled Motown label following the Supremes to perform at the nightclub and would be followed by The Temptations in 1968 and Martha (Reeves) and the Vandellas that same year. According to the liner notes later on, Marvin's performance there was a success, however, an ongoing feud between Gaye and his brother-in-law, Motown recording boss Gordy, was said to have been one of the reasons why the album was eventually shelved with the duo fighting over how the album was to be produced. The album had been scheduled for release in January 1967 as Tamla 273 before its permanent shelving. In 2005, Hip-O Select Records, a Motown-associated label created to re-release or release unreleased material from Motown's vaults re-mastered sessions from this album and released it that year.
Willie Frances Nero was an American soul and jazz singer. She recorded for Motown after winning their 1965 talent contest and had a UK hit single in 1991 with "Footsteps Following Me".
The Explosive Little Richard is the first album by Little Richard for Okeh Records, produced by his long-time friend Larry Williams and Johnny "Guitar" Watson. The songs reflect the then-popular soul and Motown musical styles; no tracks were written by Richard.
Sherrick was an American soul singer and musician.
"Bye Bye Baby" is the first single by R&B singer Mary Wells, released in September 1960 on the Motown label. The song was one of Motown's earliest hit singles and showcased a much rougher vocal than the singer had during her later years.
"(You're My) Dream Come True" is a 1962 single by The Temptations. The single is notable for being both The Temptations' first nationally charting single and the first release on Motown Records' Gordy Records imprint. The Temptations' future recordings for Motown would be issued on Gordy until the label was deactivated in the 1988 merger. Previous Temptations recordings had been issued on Motown's Miracle Records imprint, which was deactivated and reorganized as Gordy Records to avoid confusion with Motown's Miracles singing group.
"(Loneliness Made Me Realize) It's You That I Need" is a 1963 song that became a 1967 hit single recorded by the Temptations for the Gordy (Motown) label, produced and co-written by Norman Whitfield. Billboard described the single as a "groovy rocker" that "is loaded with excitement and another top vocal workout."
Bye Bye Baby I Don't Want to Take a Chance is the debut album by Motown recording artist Mary Wells, released on Motown in 1961. The album didn't chart but yielded two hit singles for the teenaged Wells including "Bye Bye Baby", issued in late 1960, and "I Don't Want to Take a Chance", a song written for her by Berry Gordy and Mickey Stevenson. Wells' follow-up album, The One Who Really Loves You, was released in 1962.
Please Mr. Postman is the 1961 studio debut album from Motown girl group The Marvelettes and the sixth album ever released by the company. The focal track is the number-one hit single, "Please Mr. Postman". The album notably features cover versions of label mates The Miracles' "Way Over There" and "I Want a Guy", which was the debut single for fellow Motown girl group The Supremes the same year, and their cover had served as the b-side to "Twistin' Postman" the less successful follow-up to "Please Mr. Postman." Although the original version by The Supremes flopped, The Marvelettes' cover became a regional hit.
"A Tear from a Woman’s Eye" is a 1964 song written and produced by Motown's main production team Holland–Dozier–Holland, and recorded by The Temptations for the Gordy (Motown) label. It competed with several songs, including "The Way You Do the Things You Do" and "Just Let Me Know" in an effort to become the A-side to the group's seventh single. It was recorded just three days before the hit song that it lost the nomination to, which was "The Way You Do the Things You Do". The group's falsetto Eddie Kendricks as the song's narrator, compares several sad situations to a woman crying, which he says is "the saddest thing I've ever seen." This would be the first of only two times in which H-D-H would produce any material for the group, who would be one of the few major Motown acts never to release a single produced by the trio, due to Berry Gordy, Jr., Smokey Robinson, and (later) Norman Whitfield having a tight hold on the group's released material. This song would go unreleased until the 1994 box-set "Emperors of Soul", while "Just One Last Look" would be released as album filler on "The Temptations with a Lot o' Soul". The group would also later cover The Vandellas' "I'm Ready for Love", which would be released on "The Temptations in a Mellow Mood" but not produced by H-D-H.
Barbara Randolph, also known as Barbara Ann Sanders, was an American soul singer and actress who recorded for Motown Records in the 1960s.
Dale Ossman Warren was an American musician, who was best known for his work as an arranger for Motown Records in the early 1960s, and later for the Stax label where he worked with Isaac Hayes among many others. He was also primarily responsible for writing, arranging and producing the influential 1973 funk concept album Ghetto: Misfortune's Wealth by 24-Carat Black.
Raynoma Mayberry Liles Gordy Singleton was an American R&B producer, songwriter, and vocalist perhaps best known for her association with ex-husband, Berry Gordy during the early days of Motown when she was often known as Miss Ray.
James T. Woodley, who performed as Singin' Sammy Ward, was an American rhythm and blues singer who recorded for Motown Records and had a R&B chart hit with "Who's The Fool", written by Smokey Robinson and produced by Berry Gordy, Jr., in 1961.
"I'll Have to Let Him Go" is a 1962 song and single written, composed and produced by William "Mickey" Stevenson and issued on the Gordy (Motown) label. it is notable for being one of two singles that marked the Motown debut of Martha and the Vandellas. The song is about ending a romantic relationship, as its narrator, after seeing her lover kissing and holding another, realizing its over and decides she going “to set him free” even though "it's gonna hurt (her) so".
References
 | This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations .(June 2015) |
- Rimmer, Dave (June 2002). The Rare Soul Bible: An A-Z Of Northern Soul. ISBN 0-9536626-5-9.
- Singleton, Raynoma Gordy (1990). Berry, Me, and Motown: The Untold Story . ISBN 0-8092-4340-7.
