The Motown Story

As surely as Atlantic was the greatest independent record company of the Fifties, Motown was the greatest of the Sixties. As one after another of the independents have sold themselves to the conglomerates, and as each, to one degree or another, has lost touch with its original source of strength, only Motown continues to reflect the musical as well as business vision of its founder: namely, Berry Gordy, Jr. It is a flawed vision but a consistent one and the fruits of his labor have been on view since he started running the company; they will continue to multiply until the day he stops.

Independent record companies are started by men personally involved with the art they intend to distribute. The late Leonard Chess discovered his artists in his bar, recorded them himself, and then sold their releases from out of the trunk of his car. He knew blues so he recorded blues. I would venture to guess that for most of his years at Chess it never occurred to him that he might be recording anything else. And consequently, for the twenty years he ran the company, the Chess label signified something musically.

The inner determination of a Leonard Chess, the personal commitment to a specific musical outlook, has always been the strength of the independent. Ultimately — in a business sense — it is their weakness too. For when the blues market (or country, or gospel, or whatever the case may be) can no longer support the company financially, these are not the men who know how to diversify: they have no heart for it. (The major exception: Atlantic.) And it is then that they sell their company to the anonymous men of the conglomerates, men who lack any musical vision at all, men who only know how to read a bottom line, men who don't care what puts it there.

Unfamiliar with the market and the music, the new men (as well as the older record men still active) do not run an in-house operation with all of its fixed expenses, but instead prefer a system of independent production in which the company invests in specific projects, finances and distributes them, and occupies itself as little as possible with the actual details of artistic production, about which it knows very little. Today, no one on the Atlantic staff has anything to do with the actual recording of Led Zeppelin or Emerson, Lake and Palmer, no one at Warners pretends to understand the musical virtues of Black Sabbath, and when the Band goes into the studio for Capitol these days, one assumes they do as they please. As long as these artists can turn out profitable records, the executives of their companies are happy to let them do as they wish. Most of them freely admit their ignorance of the new artists' musical techniques.

Of all the major companies, only Motown remains completely an in-house operation. One has the feeling, whether it is true or not, that Berry Gordy passes personal judgment on every single that comes out on his label. There is still a Motown look to the album covers, a Motown touch to the song-writing, a Motown style of singing, and, above all, a Motown sound. Anyone with ears can still tell a Motown record ten seconds after it comes on the air.

So the history of Motown over the last ten years is the history of two things: the growth of an independent corporation and the development of a creative musical collective (factory) responsible for a specific musical style. That style has resulted in a series of records and a body of music so commanding, so sophisticated, and so fine, as to make Motown a contender for the supreme pop acheivement of the last ten years.