Gordy, Berry, Jr. 1929-

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GORDY, Berry, Jr. 1929-

PERSONAL: Born November 28, 1929, in Detroit, MI; son of Berry (a plasterer) and Bertha (an insurance agent) Gordy; married Thelma Coleman, 1953 (divorced, 1959); married Raynoma Liles (divorced, 1962); married Grace Eton, July 17, 1990 (divorced, 1993); children: (first marriage) Hazel Joy, Berry IV, Terry; (second marriage) Kerry, Stefan; (with Margaret Norton) Kennedy; (with Diana Ross) Rhonda Ross. Education: Earned G.E.D.

ADDRESSES: Office—Gordy Co., 6255 West Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90028-7403.

CAREER: Professional featherweight boxer, 1948-50; 3-D Record Mart, Detroit, MI, owner, 1953-55; Ford Motor Co., Detroit, assembly-line worker, 1955-59; Hitsville, U.S.A. (later Motown Industries, Inc.), Detroit, founder and chair, 1961-88; producer for entertainers, including the Temptations, the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, and the Jackson Five; songwriter, music publisher, personal manager; Gordy Co. (includes Jobete Music Co., Motown Industries, and Stone Mountain Music), Los Angeles, CA, director, 1988—. Producer of motion pictures, including Lady Sings the Blues, Paramount, 1972; Mahogany (also director), Paramount, 1975; Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings, Universal, 1976; Almost Summer, 1978; The Wiz, Universal, 1978; and The Last Dragon, TriStar, 1985. Military service: U.S. Army, 1951-53; served in Korea.

MEMBER: Directors Guild of America.

AWARDS, HONORS: Business Achievement Award, Interracial Council for Business Opportunity, 1967; American Music Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Music Industry, 1975; named among five leading entrepreneurs of the nation, Babson College, 1978; Whitney M. Young, Jr. Award, Los Angeles Urban League, 1980; Gordon Grand fellow, Yale University, 1985; inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1988; Black Achievement Award, Brotherhood Crusade, 1988; National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Trustee Award, 1991; Black Radio Exclusive Lifetime Achievement Award, 1993; given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, 1996; American Legend Award, and Essence magazine "Image Maker" awards, both 1998; inducted into Association for Independent Music Hall of Fame, 2001.

WRITINGS:

To Be Loved: The Music, the Magic, the Memories of Motown (autobiography), Warner Books (New York, NY), 1994.

SONGWRITER

(With others) I'll Be There, H. Leonard (Milwaukee, WI), 1997.

(With others) You've Made Me So Very Happy, H. Leonard (Milwaukee, WI), 1997.

(With Janie Bradford) Money (That's What I Want), H. Leonard (Milwaukee, WI), 1998.

(With Smokey Robinson) Shop Around, H. Leonard (Milwaukee, WI), 1998.

Do You Love Me?, H. Leonard (Milwaukee, WI), 2000.

Coauthor of songs, including "Lonely Teardrops," "Reet Peteet," "To Be Loved," "That's Why (I Love You So)," "I'll Be Satisfied," "You Got What It Takes," "I Want You Back," "ABC," and "The Love You Save." Songwriter for films, including One More Saturday Night, 1986, Dirty Dancing, 1987, Concrete Angels, 1987, and Coming to America, 1988.

SIDELIGHTS: Berry Gordy, Jr. has been credited with changing the course of twentieth-century pop music with his founding of Hitsville, U.S.A., which would later become Motown Industries. His keen eye for talent and his protective management style boosted the careers of such legendary entertainers as Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, Diana Ross, and the Jackson Five. His business skills built Motown Records from an $800 investment in 1961 into the largest black-owned enterprise in America, selling for $61 million dollars to MCA Incorporated in 1988.

Gordy's rise to success is detailed in his autobiography, To Be Loved: The Music, the Magic, the Memories of Motown. Gordy tells of growing up in Detroit, the seventh of eight children born to parents who instilled strong work ethics in their children. After a brief career as a prizefighter and a stint in the Army, Gordy returned to Detroit and, with borrowed money, opened the 3-D Record Mart, which went bankrupt several years later. He then worked for Ford Motor Company as an auto trimmer. To relieve the monotony of assembly-line work, Gordy created tunes in his head. Eventually he left Ford to become a songwriter, quickly selling two of his songs, "Way over There" and "Reet Peteet," the latter which his friend, singer Jackie Wilson, made a hit. Another friend, William "Smokey" Robinson, however, explaining that record company profits were far greater than songwriter royalties, suggested Gordy start his own record company. In 1961 he founded Hitsville, U.S.A. The fledgling company's first recording was Robinson's hit "Shop Around." Renamed Motown, Gordy's company became a launching pad for the careers of many Detroiters who might otherwise never have been given a chance by major recording companies. The Supremes, led by Diana Ross, the Temptations, and Marvin Gaye were among the local talents Gordy brought to the world. "If not for Berry Gordy, Jr.," a Rolling Stone reporter wrote, "most of Motown's greatest artists would not have had music careers in the first place—and popular music, not to mention the business of popular music, would be very different today." Smokey Robinson concurred, telling Rolling Stone: "We were fortunate enough and blessed enough that the Lord put Berry Gordy in Detroit. We had somewhere to go to get our music out."

Gordy ran his company as a family business, despite its growth. Many employees were family members, and in an almost fatherly way Gordy guided the careers of Motown artists, even developing a school in which they were taught the finer points of personal grooming and etiquette, as well as business savvy as a means of ensuring personal as well as artistic success. Because of Gordy's active involvement in the lives of his clients, Gordy was sometimes portrayed as a controlling and manipulative manager, extremely protective of his sometimes-resentful money-makers. Writer Milo Miles, in a New York Times Book Review assessment of Gordy's autobiography, explained, however, that Gordy's "tightfisted operation" was "perhaps a necessity for a driven black entrepreneur of the era, when there was always someone really trying to snatch away control of money and power."

Motown thrived during the 1960s, and Gordy's discovery of the Jackson Five kept the company financially sound into the seventies. Gordy resigned as president of the company in 1973, however, to pursue his interest in motion picture and television production. Again, his risk-taking paid off; his first effort, Lady Sings the Blues, starring Diana Ross as Billie Holiday, was critically acclaimed and garnered Ross an Oscar nomination. Gordy and Ross teamed again in Mahogany, with Gordy as director, but, although popular with audiences, the film was panned by critics.

Although Gordy sold Motown Records in 1988 he retained control of Jobete Music Company, the publishing wing of Motown. In 1997 he sold fifty percent of Jobete to EMI Music Publishing, the largest music conglomerate in the world, in what Black Enterprise contributor Ann Brown called "one of the most significant music publishing deals of all time." Gordy's take on the deal was $132 million for a catalogue of some 15,000 songs, including the hits "I'll Be There," "Heard It through the Grapevine," and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough." Gordy told Black Enterprise: "In the Motown deal, I simply had to remove myself from the record business because it was changing dramatically. But I knew by getting rid of Motown I was still able to preserve the songs and build around it. I bought into the future and it's worked out well."

Gordy's many honors include induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and an American Legend award. His creative achievements in songwriting, record producing, and crafting a unique niche in U.S. popular music have been well documented and acknowledged by legions of critics. Sylvia Rhone in Essence declared that Motown Records is an "institution" that "would shine into the millennium."