MOTOWN
A look at how the music of Detroit turned into one of the most lucrative businesses in the world and why it left its home.
LANGSTON HUGHES AND BERRY GORDY JR.
Hughes faced some issues with Motown, as Gordy’s management of his talent got in the way of Hughes’ desire to remain 100% authentic and genuine with his audience. Gordy is known for having an extremely high standard for releases from Motown, knowing that every piece that left the studio for sale was a reflection of the company that he had worked so hard to build. In this case, Gordy’s read on the situation dictated that it would not sell well in the moment, and as such, he pushed the release of Hughes' album back. Hughes did not understand why his album was being pushed back because the work was done, it was good, it was ready, and it was something that he felt people would connect with at the moment of its completion itself. The pieces below detail some of what this conflict may have been like from the perspectives of Hughes and Gordy.
Eventually, Motown’s place in history as a recording company but also as a recording company within the context of the Civil Rights Movement were further solidified in its efforts to release recordings like this. And, true to Hughes' own beliefs, no matter whose work they were releasing to the public, one common theme was that black men and women were capable and should be completely allowed to pursue their dreams, no matter how long they had been deferred.
BERRY GORDY JR:
I created Black Forum as a response to the growing civil rights movement behind Dr. King. The problem was that the records that we made did not sell well at all. The world wasn’t ready for it yet – or maybe they just didn’t want to hear it right then.
So we didn’t release them for a little while. Was Langston upset? Yes, but there was good reason for us to be operating the way we were. It wouldn’t have been good business. And, well, we were in the business of making money, not losing it. It was a calculated risk, but we couldn’t afford to alienate our white client base, so we held off on the release and put the records out when things were a little less…tense.
These calculated risks were what made us who we were as a label. We understood the climate of the country and we interpreted what would and wouldn’t sell to a wide audience. That was our job. We connected people with their markets and we tapped into new ones for them to take over. Did it cause our artists to question whether or not their art was the first priority? Maybe, but we signed people based on their talent and put together our roster based on the ability of those people to build their own audiences with our help. We did good things and we made people a great deal of money. I just feel that that got lost sometimes.
LANGSTON HUGHES:
Signing with Motown was a bit of an experiment for me. I had never recorded my work for wide release before in this kind of format, but to be able to work with someone like Margaret (Danner) and with such an incredible black business like Motown was an opportunity I thought I should take.
People had told me that Berry Gordy was a genius. That he had made his life’s work music and had found ways to reach wider audiences than we could have ever imagined, but when we spoke and our recording was delayed, I was unsettled. I had never thought of this as something I wanted to do to make money, but that seemed to be his primary motivation.
I was more concerned with the work and what we were able to say. I wanted this material to reach more people than my work normally did and that was a large part of why I had even signed with the company in the first place.
