MOTOWN

I began this project with the idea of seeing how several different social issues were introduced and evolved in the city of Detroit. That slowly changed into my own exploration into how Motown was able to one, address so many of the socio-political issues of the time, and two, achieve the success that it did in a world where there had never really been any sort of cross-over success that the label had. 

 

The first part of my project was the sequence of monologues I crafted for Berry Gordy Jr., the founder of Motown. These pieces catalogued his rise in the industry and different moments of cultural relevance for him and his company.

 

As much of my interest had been in the socio-political messages of the work which Motown released, I began to look deeper after this was completed. My next steps took me to some of the bigger artists and cultural icons whom he worked with.

 

I began by doing biographical research and reporting on these individuals and then crafted duologue pieces which could serve as reflections on their relationships with Gordy and Motown after key moments in their careers.

 

The sources used in this project include the pages of my respective subjects on Biography.com, but predominantly Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit  by Suzanne E. Smith,  Where Did Our Love Go?: The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound by: Nelson George, and To Be Loved: The Music, the Magic, the Memories of Motown: An Autobiography by: Berry Gordy Jr. These three books provided me with the bulk of the information I used to put forth my theories about the rise and fall of Motown and how it reached such unprecedented success while many of its own hometown competitors crumbled.

 

This website serves as a collection of the information I have gathered and allows me to archive this information in hopes that I will continue to add to this collection in the future to, eventually, put together a small set of pieces to be performed for individuals interested in Motown and the sounds of Detroit in the mid-20th Century.

 

 

          Vishnu Venugopal   -