United We Stand |
| Motown
Records was the child of Berry Gordy, Jr, better known at the time
as "BG." He conceived it, he founded it and he
made it work. He was the producer for all of the product and
he was the undisputed head of a black music family called
Motown. In the early 60's it was all about family and
helping each other achieve the music goals everyone wanted.
Secretaries were recording stars and the music groups did
background vocals for each other. |
| As the
family grew in size and creative talent, Berry started letting
others produce artists, starting with the production team of Brianbert (Robert Bateman and Brian Holland). Motown
Records established itself with back-to-back #1 million sellers,
Shop Around by the Miracles (Produced by BG) and "Please, Mr.
Postman (produced by Brianbert). |
|
Maintaining hits by their
"established" artists and getting new hits on other
artists, Motown began a three-year building period - making a
hit-factory. Berry encouraged "friendly competition"
by letting any writing and producing team work on any artist and by
releasing was was judged "the best" rather than releasing
a song because it was produced by particular team. Just
because you got an artist a hit, didn't mean you would get the
follow-up - you had to compete with the other producers and
writers.
|
|
During this period, remarkably diverse
collaborations formed with hall of fame writer-producer Smokey
Robinson releasing the hit, Mickey's Monkey, written and produced by
the Holland-Dozier-Holland team. Several acts had a string of
hits with the production team changing every other release.
The "family" was happy working under these terms and with
the vibe of "let the best team win." |
| Motown
would "explode" and establish itself as the number one
hit record company in 1964 beginning with the top-of-the-year
smash releases by three of the prominent teams. Smokey
Robinson's "My Guy" was released on Mary Wells (one of
the biggest black female vocalist of the time), BG's, The Way You
Do The Things you do was released on the Temptations and
Holland-Dozier-Holland's, "Where Did Our Love Go?"
was released on The Supremes. |
|
The second Supremes hit, "Baby
Love," would displace the Beatles as the number#1 national hit
and the whole world would notice Motown. It seemed that
anything released in 1964 was a hit. By the end of the year,
statistics didn't lie and over 75% of Motown's many releases reached
at least top 40 on national pop charts. They sold more single
records than any record company in the world, capturing over
10% of this huge music market. |
|
It would be another three years of
glory times for Motown before the very policies that established the
hit factory would begin to drive devastating wedges in the family
structure. |
But Divided We Fail |
|
Holland-Dozier-Holland formed when Bob
Bateman (Motown's first recording engineer/ producer) left Motown
for "greener" pastures in 1962. HDH quickly
established themselves as the prime writing/producing team at
Motown. |
|
The 1964 explosion of Motown was
largely due to this songwriting/producer team. Motown had
captured 10% of the market in 1964, but a full 75% of the releases
that were hits were written and/or produced by the HDH team
members. Theoretically, at least, HDH by themselves could have
been the biggest hit record company in the world. |
|
For the next three years the HDH team
maintained their creative supremacy at Motown coming by up with an
unheard of string of six #1 hits on the Supremes, an
almost-as-impressive hit series on such artists as the Four Tops and
individual productions on many other artists. |
|
But three years of reigning the number
one team and receiving no special priority began to grind on the
Holland-Dozier-Holland team. The situation was strained when
Berry was considering giving the next Supremes release to another
team after HDH had litterly made the artist. Eddie Holland, the
business mind of team, began letting the team's reaction to the
situation be known to BG. |
|
Berry was not ready to admit that the
"best team" vibe was past it's prime. When HDH saw
that they wouldn't make much progress on an exclusive production deal
on Motown Artists, they suggested that BG let them develop new
artists exclusive to them while continuing to produce for regular
Motown artists under the "best team" rules. By
today's standards this is a logical deal that would be entered into
in a minute, but to BG at the time, it was destruction of a basic
operating principle that had served him well. When he
said no, the unity that was the true cause of success split wide and
far. |
|
BG tried to placate HDH by making
Brian Holland a Vice President in charge of Quality Control and
Eddie Holland the A&R Director. From these executive
positions in the company, they would have more control over what was
recorded (A&R Department) as well as what was released (Quality
Control Department). But the team didn't want music politics,
they wanted to make music and have it released. Their reaction
was to plot their exit from Motown. |
|
A separate HDH and Motown would
continue to be a force in the music industry for another five years
until a major company attack would leave HDH totally stultified and
Motown a minute shadow of its former self. In a future " Our
Motown Recording Heritage," we'll provide more
details of "Divided We Fail." |
