The Sound of Young America Soul Deep: The Story of Black Popular Music

'Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Ray Charles.'

# Get down on your knees, if you have to get dirty, get down... #

# Oooh... #

# R-E-S-P-E-C-T Find out what it means to me... #

# Hit me! The rhythm was there... #

It's 1967, and the mastermind

behind the most successful black-owned business in history

has achieved his dream.

With a unique vision,

he had created a music that appealed equally to black and white.

He had created the sound of young America.

RADIO CRACKLES

With a musical empire based in the industrial city of Detroit,

he employed a group of artists envied across the world.

# ..my world is empty without you, babe... #

The Supremes. The Four Tops.

The Temptations. The Miracles.

Martha and the Vandellas. Mary Wells.

Respected and admired, he was the puppet-master.

You know, he was the guy. He was pullin' the strings.

Loved and feared, he was a born leader,

a man on a mission.

He was...king around here.

Emperor, king, and his majesty and all that rolled into one.

Enigmatic and controlling, he shied away from publicity.

He knows how to use people to get what...

To get the job done.

This is the story of how one man in the early 1960s

had a vision for soul music.

How he set up a small independent label called Motown,

which would beat the majors at their own game.

How even his strongest rivals in Chicago

were left lagging behind.

Chicago and Detroit were like gangsters.

It was like, we didn't want to have nothin' to do with Motown,

and they didn't want to have nothin' to do with us.

But, by 1967, his empire was showing the strain of the times.

# ..My world is empty without you, babe

# Without you, babe... #

With the Detroit riots came an end to an era of innocence.

GLASS SMASHES

This is the story of Berry Gordy,

black music's greatest svengali,

and his creation, Motown Records.

The city that gave the world Motown was not, in the 1950s,

known for its music, but for its cars.

Throughout America, it was known as the Motor City.

And it was on a motor-assembly line that Gordy,

after serving in the Korean War and running his own jazz record store,

began working in 1955.

The tedium of the work infuriated Gordy,

but it did allow him the time to compose songs in his head.

Believing he had talent, he decided to quit the assembly line

and try his luck as a song-writer.

# ..My heart is cryin', cryin'

# Lonely teardrops

# My pillow's never dry of... #

Gordy's first big break

was when he was introduced to Detroit's hottest young star,

a man known as Mr Excitement.

Jackie Wilson was such a sexy guy.

Women would come to the stage... They were so frantic over him,

and he was so frantic in doing what they wanted him to do.

They would just keep their lips up to the stage

and he would get down on his knees and he'd kiss them all.

Kiss 'em all, I don't mean one of those kind of kisses,

I mean a KISS, OK?

Jackie was the first big, big thrill of my life.

I was a song-writer around Detroit, trying to get my songs heard.

Jackie recorded Lonely Teardrop,

and it was his biggest record ever.

When I heard this record on the air,

I just got so excited. I thought I would be rich forever!

But although Gordy wrote five consecutive hit songs for Wilson,

he didn't become rich.

Berry Gordy was always a great writer.

I mean, all the great records of Jackie's were written by Berry.

Berry probably felt that he should be receiving more money than he was,

and when the manager didn't want to change his thinking,

there was a disagreement and Berry then no longer wrote the songs.

Gordy may not have made any real money from Jackie Wilson,

but he did learn that there was money to be made.

Leaving Jackie, he turned his attention to an emerging song-writer

called Smokey Robinson.

Together, in 1959, they decided that the only way to make real money

was to start their own company.

In a city without an established musical identity,

Gordy was about to put Detroit on the musical map.

He called the company Motown, after Detroit's nickname, the Motor City.

When Motown was started up it would have been perceived in a positive way in the black community

because black people have a strong belief in business,

and entrepreneurship. Cos black people find it so difficult

to get jobs, any black entrepreneur who can create jobs

is gonna be seen in a very positive light.

Black people want to run businesses, they wanna be successful.

So he started up this business. He was using black acts and so forth,

and employing black people. It would be seen in a very positive way.

Gordy came from a middle-class family with entrepreneurial tradition,

and it was with their help he was able to move into Motown's new home

on Detroit's West Grand Boulevard. Although modest in appearance,

Gordy showed no modesty in naming the building.

The name was to prove no idle boast,

when Gordy achieved his first big hit with Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.

# ..And then she said, just because you've become a young man now

# There's still some things That you don't understand

# Before you ask some girl for her hand, now

# Keep your freedom for as long as you can, now

# My mama told me You better shop around

# Oh, yeah You better shop around... #

Shop Around was Motown's first number one big hit,

and Smokey was the writer for Motown. The main writer.

Smokey was definitely the guy to get a song from,

if you were a group or an act there in Motown.

# ..You better shop around Oh, yeah

# You better shop around... #

Shop Around was a hit not only in the black rhythm'n'blues charts,

but also in the white pop charts.

Gordy knew that the white record-buying public was enormous,

and that if he could crack that market, his success was assured.

'I didn't like tags on my music.

'I didn't consider it black music, or white music, or green music.

'I didn't like labels. I didn't like race music - black, whatever.

'I just felt it's music for all people, music people would love.'

What Gordy was looking for was crossover music -

music that had no racial boundaries.

And with this in mind, he began to surround himself

with a family of like-minded individuals.

Lamont Dozier, songwriter.

'When I came along in '62,

'I had some definite ideas of how I wanted to approach it.'

First of all, I wanted to eliminate, or annihilate, in this case,

this race music idea.

Brian and Eddie Holland, producer and lyricist.

'If Berry Gordy didn't like you, he wouldn't deal with you.

'He liked people around him who were talented, especially young people.'

He loved young, creative people.

He enjoyed the relationship,

which was very helpful and fruitful to the development of the company.

Mickey Stevenson, A&R man and talent scout.

'I came as a singer, and I brought my songs to sing.

'He listened to my songs,'

and said, "This is great." So I kept singing 'em,

kept bringing out more and more,

and he said, "OK..." and I said, "What? What what what?"

He said, "Well, your songs are pretty good.

"But your voice, that's for shit."

So I said, "Oh, wait a minute." That's it for me, you know?

I started collecting my music up - I'm outta here. I couldn't sing.

He said, "Wait a minute! I know you handle musicians,

"and you know all the guys and they've got a lot of respect for you.

"Why don't you consider being an A&R man for my company?"

And it was Mickey Stevenson who was to hire a group of musicians

who would play on almost every record Motown released -

The Funk Brothers.

But Gordy was a black businessman in a white-dominated industry.

His masterstroke was to hire a man who knew that industry inside-out.

I was the first white person that was brought into Motown.

I had the knowledge of the record industry.

We had a great combination.

I had no interest in going into the studio whatsoever,

and Berry had no interest as far as the marketing or sales of records.

And we came out together great.

One group of youngsters who were desperate to be part of this success

were three teenage girls from the Brewster projects,

a working-class estate in downtown Detroit.

Diana Ross, Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson.

The one thing about the Supremes is that, I always thought,

that we, together, made one perfect human being.

We were totally different.

Myself being sort of like a middle person -

very calm, I used to be.

'Florence was a very sort of soulful, earthy...

'Extremely earthy girl.'

Didn't take any stuff from anybody, OK?

Diana was always very kind of fun, and very, very playful.

When we auditioned for Mr Gordy, we sang all of the songs we loved.

We were just so thrilled, and we knew that we had done a great job.

Then Mr Gordy said, "Well, you girls are really good..."

I liked them a lot, and they wanted me to sign them right away,

and I said, "Well, not until you've finished high school."

We were like, "What?!"

We couldn't quite understand why he wouldn't sign us, you know?

Then years later we found out he was just concerned.

We were young girls, just barely 16,

and he just didn't want to have anything to do with underage girls.

I recall leaving the studio, and Florence said,

"Hmph. He couldn't be so smart, if he didn't recognise how great we were."

But the Supremes were nothing if not persistent.

They came back to the studio, and had learned everything they could.

And when the semester was up, we signed them.

Florence Ballard chose the name Supremes,

but after a string of unsuccessful recordings,

the group became known as the No-Hit Supremes,

despite achieving modest success with a song written by Gordy himself.

# ..Don't lead me astray

# Hey, let me go the right way

# My heart

-# My baby, is all weak for you

-All weak for you

-# So please

-Ba-doo, ba-doo

-# Be careful and treat me true

-Treat me true... #

'Let Me Go The Right Way was a record we really thought would be a hit.

'I think what we really liked about it is that it was soulful,

'and we, like everybody else, were black and wanted something soulful.'

It was like, "That was gonna be our hit!"

And it did do a little bit locally, I think,

but it just didn't hit the charts and go all the way.

But if Gordy couldn't rely on the No-Hit Supremes,

his other investments were proving a better bet.

# ..Nothing you can say Would tear me away from my guy

# Nothing you can do Cos I'm stuck like glue to my guy

# I'm sticking to my guy Like a stamp to a letter

# Like birds of a feather We stick together

# I been telling you from the start I can't be torn apart from my guy. #

"Nothing you can say will take me away from my guy.

"No handsome face will ever take the place of my guy."

It was just easy to remember, and it had a rhythm to it

that you could sing along with.

And it was these sing-along, easy-to-remember, feel-good lyrics

that seemed in perfect tune with the aspiration and optimism of the times.

There was a strong air of optimism about race relations in the US.

People thought that society would be integrated by the end of the '60s,

and there was a great commitment on the part of younger black people.

There seemed to be change in the air. We got this young president in 1960, John F Kennedy,

who was attractive, and he seemed to have sympathy for African-Americans.

-# ..take my hand from my guy

-From my guy

# No handsome face Could ever take the place

-# Of my guy

-My guy... #

You could say that JFK, you could say that Martin Luther King,

you could say that the music and sound of Motown were all synonymous.

I think it took all these things to kind of wake the world up.

To hey, we've got to care more about one another,

and give us all some understanding.

MUSIC: "Dancing In The Street" by Martha and the Vandellas

And no song represented the peoples of the world and Motown's attitude

better than Mickey Stevenson's anthem Dancing In The Street.

# Calling out around the world

# Are you ready for a brand-new beat?

# Summer's here and the time is right

# For dancin' in the street... #

I think it's like an anthem for all dance music.

It's like the grandfather of all dance music.

It's gone from generation to generation, because of the feel.

Again, the feeling that connects with the human psyche, or the human spirit, I should say.

No matter what race or colour or whatever, it just grabs you.

That's what makes it, I guess, such a phenomenon.

'When I first heard it I didn't like it. I didn't feel it.'

And after singing it my best the first time, not having a machine on,

a little bit of rage came in the second delivery,

but it's an exciting rage,

and one that... Sometimes producers will do that.

I don't know if they did it intentionally, but they got a good performance out of me.

The right voice, the right arrangement, the Funk Brothers -

everything seemed to be gelled for the song.

It all came together in such a way that it was just spirit-driven.

Gordy had now found a perfect formula

to ensure that his music was played not only on black radio stations,

but more importantly, on white ones too.

# ..music, sweet music... #

I think one of the great reasons for the great success of Motown

was that they crossed over to white radio.

Once Motown discovered

that white radio looked at their records as white records,

rather than black records from the ghetto, they built on that

and made their sound more and more acceptable to the white radio.

What Gordy had done was to transform Detroit from the Motor City

into its new incarnation as the Music City.

# ..dancin' in the street... #

# 1, 2, 3... #

Just up the road, in Chicago, Detroit's legendary rival,

no such transformation was necessary.

Chicago had a rich musical history.

Black workers had migrated here throughout the 20th century,

and brought with them their own music - the blues.

I came from the South,

and a lot of people migrated from the South to Chicago.

And we all settled right in that area on the south side

and music was very important.

I think music was probably our way of escaping some of the realities

that were going on.

Raw, dangerous and intense,

this was music that was never played on white radio.

HE SINGS BLUES

And since the 1940s,

Chicago had had its own hugely successful label, Chess Records,

founded by Polish immigrants Phil and Leonard Chess.

We primarily were a blues record company,

starting in 1947, Chess beginning in 1950.

Artists like Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf -

we had 'em all. We were the best label in Chicago.

Chess was the best, there's no doubt.

But by the early 1960s,

the blues market seemed old-fashioned and irrelevant

to a new generation of aspirational black society.

Chicago was changing, and it needed music that reflected that change.

It needed soul.

# Oh, sometimes

# I get a good feeling, yeah... #

When I came over to Chicago,

I wanted to sing what they were singing there,

because what they were singing there was really cool.

It just gave you a feeling, you know, of "All right!

"All right, I'm gettin' it now!"

# ..I got a feeling

# That I never, never, never, never had before, no, no... #

First time I remember Etta was at the 2120 Michigan office.

She came in with an entourage -

midgets, dressmakers, chauffeurs...

It was like when you see the picture of elephants in a long chain.

Etta walked in the front like the queen, with all these people behind.

# ..Yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah... #

My father admired her talent.

He would say, "That bitch can sing like no-one else."

# ..Something's got a hold on me Yeah, yeah

# Oh, something's got a hold on me

# Right now, yeah child

# Let me tell you now

# I got a feeling I feel so strange

# Everything about it seems to have changed

# Step by step I got a brand-new walk

# It even sounds sweeter when I talk

# I said, oh, oh,

# Oh!

# Hey, hey, whoa It must be love... #

When I started recording,

Leonard would come down and get in the booth with me,

and just punch me in the side. "Come on, mother!"

I would say, "Now why is he doing this?"

But he liked to... He wanted to feel like he was producing, you know?

Me especially, since I was the new young thing there at the company.

But Leonard Chess knew that to compete with the crossover success of his rivals at Motown,

he would have to change Etta's image.

He wanted to take Etta James

from that rough kind of black music, black sales only,

to the crossover.

For us, crossover was, get the white audience to buy it. That was the big sale.

To expand out of the black market to the white radio and white audience

meant many more sales. There are many more white people in American than black people.

# ..I'm so sorry for you... #

I didn't know what crossover was.

I said, "What does that mean?" "Just that you're gonna get a pop record,

"and you're going to be a very pop artist."

And I went, "Oh, my goodness..."

because I wasn't really... into singing that stuff.

I mean, I wanted to rock and roll.

And he says, "Are you kidding? You wanna be a pop artist!

"You make more money and everything." So I said, "OK, that's cool."

In order to achieve crossover,

Leonard and Phil Chess employed what they called "the sweetening".

Sweetening. Mostly it referred to strings or background voices -

anything like you could add.

A good analogy would be an ice-cream sundae.

It starts out with scoops of ice-cream,

and you add the chocolate sauce, the nuts and the cherry on the top.

That's the sweetener.

# ..Put your arms around me

# I can't go on with this make-believe

# I hope you'll find someone you won't deceive... #

I know for sure that strings did put a white sound,

a whiter sound... It was white, or at least whiter, on the music.

If you were singing something and it was bluesy,

when you put those strings on it took the blues and made it sweet.

People would just shut they eyes,

and just, "Oh, my goodness, this is so great - these strings."

They call it the "lush" sound.

# ..feel the pain

# You'll find you're not so smart

# You'll only end with a broken heart... #

Etta James was Chess's crossover star, and Chicago was on the up.

With the addition of strings, they had transformed the blues

into sophisticated soul.

But no amount of sweetening could compete

with what Gordy had up his sleeve for the No-Hit Supremes.

One day Berry Gordy said to us,

"You know, you girls are so serious!

"I'll put you with my best writing team, Holland-Dozier-Holland."

# Baby, baby

# Where did our love go?

# Don't you want me?

# Don't you want me no more? #

Holland-Dozier-Holland's first hit song for the Supremes

received, at first, a lukewarm response from the girls.

What did we particularly dislike about Where Did Our Love Go?

Everything!

It was, it was like this song...

# Baby, baby

# Where did our love go? #

And so Florence and I, we're used to singing, right?

So all we had to sing in this song was...

# Baby, baby

# Ooh, baby, baby

# Baby, baby... #

I mean, it was like nothing

so we felt like we were insignificant as singers.

But as the No-Hit Supremes,

Diana, Florence and Mary had little say in the matter

and were ordered to learn the song anyway.

# I got this yearning burning, baby

# Feel it inside me. Oh! #

It's still early, boys.

But even when the song had been perfected,

Diana Ross remained unhappy.

She said, "I'm gonna call Berry"

and I looked at her and said, "I tell you what.

"There's the telephone, you go call Berry."

I said, "But when you call him,

"You tell him to come over and take you into the studio."

So when she looked at me, I guess she said, "He's got that much!"

She said, "OK" and she didn't.

# Baby, baby

# Baby, don't leave me

# Ooh, please don't leave me

# All by myself... #

But she was unhappy

so she sang the song as dry as she could

and I remember the engineer turned round and looked at me.

I said, "Leave it alone, just let it go. This is perfect."

He could tell by her attitude that she was saying "To hell with this,"

but her voice WASN'T, see?

She had that natural, beautiful, sultry voice that was coming through.

And then she went right through the whole song and she said, "Is this what you want?"

I said, "Thank you, that's EXACTLY what I want! Thank you."

And that was the end of it.

Diana, Florence and Mary's misgivings were shared by an unlikely ally.

I loved Diana Ross, she was always sweet and Florence was cool

and Mary was glamour girl

but that was what used to bug me so.

SHE IMITATES BABY # Baby, baby, tell me Baby, doo de doo... #

I didn't care for that kind of stuff.

Not that they were bad in any kind of way, but it was like, "Why are they singing like that?"

Gordy though knew that The Supremes' singing style was exactly what made them so special.

I think that Berry saw that we were what he was looking for

to take the Motown sound a step further.

In Diane, he saw that her sound was a little more unique

in that it was very different from others.

Sometimes when you have so many people who sound soulful, it's like, "Whatever."

She had a uniquely different sound.

# Ooh, ooh

# Baby love, my baby love

# I need you Oh, how I need you

The huge success of Where Did Our Love Go?

was followed by an astonishing eight Number One hits for The Supremes,

all written by Holland-Dozier-Holland.

Together, they had found a perfect pop formula.

If we didn't get the goosebumps or the hair standing on the arms,

then something was missing.

We would often sit, the three of us, the Holland brothers and myself,

would sit and try to analyse a feeling

and if there was a drop in the mood,

as long as it was up and you were feeling like, "Wow, man, this is sensational,

"it's got feeling, it's got realism."

You know, I could believe that this happened to somebody.

Then you're on the right track.

# Now if you feel that you can't go on

# Because all of your hope is gone... #

Holland-Dozier-Holland had become Motown's most successful songwriters,

writing major hits for an extraordinary number of different acts,

such as Reach Out I'll Be There for The Four Tops.

-# Darling...

-Reach out...

# Come on, girl... #

They did a tremendous job on it,

the guitar and the bassline was fabulous

when we got to the rhythm, it just really catapulted the song.

# I'll be there

# With a love that will shelter you

# I'll be there

# With a love that will see you through... #

Motown was now a hit factory

with a strictly regimented system for the production of every new release.

I got the idea from the assembly line when I worked at an automobile plant

and as the cars rolled down the line, they started out as a frame

and they ended up brand spanking new cars coming off the line.

In my company, I tried to do the same thing,

only with human beings, which was a lot more interesting.

Motown WAS a production line.

I mean, that's what made them so great because there was a plan,

there was a layout of how it should work.

The production line began, with Motown's producers and writers

competing to create the next big hit.

Secrecy was key.

We kept our doors closed.

Whenever we were working in our office,

we made sure there wasn't anybody lurking outside our door,

listening to the different things we were coming up with.

Once they had a song,

it was recorded, often within the day,

by the Funk Brothers, Motown's house band.

The Funk Brothers, in my opinion, were invaluable to the company

because they could execute what Brian and Lamont wanted them to do

because basically, when Brian and Lamont would go into the studio,

they would only have chord sheets.

The ranges were done in their heads on the spot.

Before the records were released,

they had to come before a quality control meeting,

where Gordy and his team would scrutinise the song

to see whether it was good enough to be a major hit.

Minor hits were not acceptable.

It was survival of the fittest, so to speak.

That's when the real fun started and the real competition.

And of course the real hit records came out of that

because it had to be great to get out of that meeting alive.

# Nowhere to run to, baby... #

And with Gordy in overall control,

the production line went into overdrive.

# Got nowhere to run to, baby

# Nowhere to hide

# It's not love I'm running from

# It's the heartbreak I know will come

# Cos I know you're no good for me

# But you've become a part of me

# Everywhere I go, your face I see

# Every step I take, you take with me

Murray the K had this brilliant idea to make videos of us.

He took us to the Ford Motor Company and they built a Mustang while we sang Nowhere To Run.

# Nowhere to hide... #

We had to get on the line and off the line

and the guys, the workers there, were complaining,

saying, "Get these women out of here! We're trying to make a car.

"We're trying to do our work."

And they didn't stop the line, they would just make us jump off and on as it was moving

and we walked through the paint line and where they put the tyres on and everything

but we got a first-hand view of just how cars are made

and they made this car in the two minutes and 45 seconds that we sang Nowhere To Run.

# Nowhere to run

# Nowhere to hide from you, baby... #

It may have been a production line

but new methods were constantly employed to create a new sound.

# Nowhere to hide... #

We went out in the garage. In the back of the studio,

there was some old chains back there

and we wanted something to give a different sound, a clinking sound.

Well, we brought those chains and different things into the studio

and miked them up, put a microphone on them and tried to see what type of sound we'd get.

Then you'd start putting it on a beat...CLINK!

CLINK! CLINK!

And he held that chain and beat that chain

until his hand actually bled, making the sound that you hear in the rhythm.

# Just can't get away from you, baby... #

But Motown needed more than just an efficient production line

to ensure sales in the record shops.

The machinery was the people there at Motown

and I have been told I have a reputation of being a tough guy.

Distributors didn't pay their bills.

They had a lot of trouble

because I believed if I sold you something and you sold it,

you're entitled to pay me and I would not accept anything less than that.

And that's where I got a reputation.

I collected the money. I always got our money.

Whether you personally dig the Detroit sound or not,

there's no question it's being dug by a lot of youngsters

to the happy tune of an estimated 15 million gross a year.

Richard O'Brien, CBS News, Detroit.

Held scoreless by Chicago,

the Detroit Lions explode with Tobin Rote quarterbacking and passing.

Chicago knew that Motown was on the right track

and was looking on enviously.

And a great run back...whoops!

'It was almost like rival teams, you know.

'They had a good idea, we just went along. We tried to use it.'

We were always listening,

these guys would go and buy Motown records

and come back and make us listen to them, the writers.

"This is what we want, we wanna emulate this."

And with Chess in the doldrums,

having had no major hits for several years,

Leonard and Phil Chess needed a rescue plan.

Where are you, Voice?

Come in, it's time to come in!

# Rescue me

# Take me in your arms

# Rescue me

# I want your tender charms

# Cos I'm lonely

# And I'm blue

# I need you

# And your love too

# Come on and rescue me

# Oh yeah

# Rescue me... #

When I came to Chicago, I knew I was coming to Chess Records.

I came to be a jazz musician

and it didn't happen.

And Leonard asked me if I would do a duet with, er...

I was detoured.

He asked me would I do a record with Bobby McClure

and I said, "Of course," you know, because I love Bobby

and we did a record called Don't Mess Up A Good Thing.

# A good thing

# A good thing

# You've been cheating on me

# Now, you know I know it's true

# But ain't nobody in the whole wide world

# Gonna love you like I do So don't be no fool... #

But Don't Mess Up A Good Thing was never going to rival anything at Motown,

charting at a modest Number 33.

# You're gonna mess up a good thing... #

We were desperate for a hit at Chess.

We needed a hit to pay the salaries.

Record companies have cold streaks and hot streaks,

just like football teams or baseball teams.

We were having a cold streak and we needed a hit.

And the only sure-fire way they knew they would get a hit...

was to copy Motown.

# Rescue me

# Take me in your arms

# Rescue me

# I want your tender charms

# Cos I'm lonely

# And I'm blue

# I need you

# And your love too

# Come on and rescue me

# Come on, baby, and rescue me

# Come on, baby, and rescue me

# Cos I need you by my side

# Can't you see that I'm lonely?

# Rescue me... #

I will have to tell you...

Rescue Me WAS inspired by the Motown sound.

That year, Motown was hot,

they were on the charts with all those kinds of bass lines and drum riffs.

Yes, it was one of the few Chess Records

that took from Motown and tried to have a similar kind of hit.

# Cos I need you by my side... #

People thought Rescue Me was a Motown song because of its rhythm.

Everything was...DUM, DUM... you know, it was on the one.

Everything was on the one, it was upbeat and everything

and everyone thought it was Motown automatically, you know,

because Chess wasn't doing nothing like that.

But that WAS all Motown, wasn't it?

Chess? Well, that was the time when we all felt...

Chicago had good reason to feel left behind.

Detroit, once again, was a step ahead.

Gordy, having perfected the sound,

now concentrated on the image.

With The Supremes as the trailblazers,

Motown moved from the projects downtown...

to the very heart of the white establishment, uptown.

I said, "I'm going to open up a department that has nothing to do with singing

"cos I can't even hold a note.

"But you are gonna be trained

"to appear in Number One places around the country

"and even before the Queen and the President of the United States."

Those youngsters in 1964 looked at me and laughed and said,

"All we want is a hit record."

What Gordy and Miss Powell created was a Motown finishing school

which was to be called "artist development".

It was Maxine Powell's job to refine us.

She, very early on,

told us that we were all diamonds in the raw...

and we needed to be refined.

And I thought that was a really wonderful way of looking at us.

So she just basically taught us

how to sit and how to talk

and what fork to eat with and which one not to.

And it's always been said that if a group of artists were together

you could always tell a Motown artist

because of our refinement.

-# Come see about me

-See about me, baby

# Come see about me... #

But artist development did not only deal with etiquette

it also taught choreography and stage presence.

In an early performance of The Supremes' classic Come See About Me

Diana Ross decided to add a personal touch.

# No matter what you do or say... #

I said, "What are you doing?"

She was kinda rolling her eyes and I said, "What are you doing?"

"I'm singing."

And I said, "It looked like you're also making faces."

"Well, I'm souling, I'm feeling it."

And I said, "Well, for a number one place around the country you can't do that

"because they are not gonna look at you for two hours making faces.

"You're going to go to a different level eventually." But they couldn't see that.

MUSIC: "Come See About Me"

-# I've been crying

-Ooh, ooh

-# Cos I'm lonely

-For you

-# Smiles have all turned

-To tears

-# But tears won't wash away

-The fears

# That you're never ever gonna return

# To ease the fire that within me burns

# It keeps me crying, baby, for you... #

Gordy's investment in Motown's finishing school was paying off.

The Supremes had become a household name

in both black and white homes.

Part of their appeal unquestionably

is that they seem like young white girls of the period.

Gordy had them well trained by Maxine Powell

and they're just so appealing and so cute and so clean.

They're just really clean.

This was gonna be his ticket into white America. And he succeeded.

Mr Gordy, who's that we're listening to?

Those are The...Supremes.

And that's a...

a record taken from their album which is their current release.

The Supremes Sing Holland-Dozier-Holland.

That's your big group, isn't it?

Yes, it is. It's...

not only MY big group but it's the big group in the world today.

Perhaps the finest singers in the world.

MUSIC: "You Can't Hurry Love"

# I need love love to ease my mind... #

The Supremes had not only conquered America but had become Gordy's global ambassadors.

# You can't hurry love No, you just have to wait

# She said love don't come easy It's a game of give and take... #

But with their success came increasing criticism that Berry Gordy had sold out

to a white sensibility.

# No matter how long it takes... #

Critics would write, "The Supremes are...

homogenised and this and that. And that hurt.

It really did hurt us, you know, because...

we wanted to be so much more.

In the later part of the '60s among black kids I knew

was this feeling that whites were co-opting this music

and there was no longer a sense of pride about whites liking the music.

So there was this kind of sense that Gordy was making a mistake

by trying to make his music have this integration, assimilation appeal that people no longer liked.

I remember one kid said, "This should be called the sound of black America."

And accusations that Gordy was out of touch

were echoed within the Motown family itself

when acts were pushed into the world of white entertainment.

# The moon on their wings

# These are a few of my favourite things... #

Florence was not as comfortable

doing the Hollywood scene. I mean, some people just aren't,

and Florence was one of those.

How can you fight something that looks good?

But she just wasn't comfortable with it.

So for her...to do some of the things that we had to do,

she just felt it was fake. She wanted to be real. She didn't want to be make-believe.

But the direction The Supremes were taking were not Florence's only concern.

With the rise and rise of Diana Ross

Florence and Mary were no longer backing singers but background singers.

-# You made me love you

-You made me love you

# And oh, my darling now you're gone

# Now you're gone

# You said loving you would make life beautiful

# With each passing day... #

There was a period of time

where Florence was disgruntled to say the least

about Diana being the lead singer.

Because when the girls started off Florence was the lead singer.

And so naturally, you know...

You know, a little vanity is in all of us.

She wanted to continue with that but people kept pushing Diana Ross.

The pressure on Florence increased to such an extent

that alcohol and depression took over her life

and she was sacked from The Supremes.

# After you made me... #

Gordy decided to disengage from certain details

in relation to the life of certain people in that company

because they were no longer important to him.

So the other people in The Supremes,

once he decided he was zeroing in to make Diana Ross a star,

the other people in The Supremes became expendable.

If Gordy was seen to be disengaging from personal issues within the Motown family,

he was also criticised for ignoring the bigger problems affecting America.

With the escalating war in Vietnam,

a growing urban crisis and the rise of the Civil Rights movement,

the optimism of the early 1960s had evaporated

and the mood of the country had changed.

Suddenly Motown seemed hopelessly out of touch.

You must know that in that period of time

Berry was interested in building his company.

He was not interested...

I don't think so much in... the Civil Rights movement.

And everybody was beating that drum.

MUSIC: "Choice Of Colours"

And it would be in Chicago, not Detroit,

that America's social conscience was heard.

# If you had a choice of colours

# Which one would you choose My brothers?

# If there was no day or night

# Which would you prefer to be right? #

Curtis Mayfield was one of the first artists to sing openly

about community struggle and racial harmony.

He grew up in Chicago's housing project.

Obsessed by music,

he began writing and performing aged 14.

After a series of pop hits with The Impressions,

he increasingly turned his attention to songs with a social message.

# People must prove to the people

# A better day is coming

# For you and for me

# With just a little bit more education

# And love for our nation

# Would make a better society... #

I think the reason Curtis was singled out, so to speak,

was because Curtis was writing...

in the period when the Civil Rights movement...

was just really kind of getting rolling in...in America.

His songs... "People, get ready, there's a train a-comin'...

"..You don't need no ticket You just get on board

"All you need is faith to hear diesels humming..."

I mean, that's just...that's poetry.

THE IMPRESSIONS: # People get ready

# There's a train a-comin'

# You don't need no baggage

# Just get on board

# All you need is faith to hear the diesels humming

# Don't need no ticket

# You just thank the Lord... #

When you talk about Curtis Mayfield you have to understand

that you can't really put him in just anybody else's category.

I don't know whether he was the hit of his time

or he was saying things...

that was...today... He was saying things that was important

about what we were going through,

what life was about. And he felt that somebody had to tell it.

# There's no hiding place

# Against the kingdom's throne... #

I don't think Berry Gordy would have allowed Curtis to sing those message songs in the beginning.

That's just my opinion.

Obviously with hindsight, he probably would say yes.

Berry was about reaching young America, the...

the bubblegum songs that everybody could feel good about.

# Don't need no ticket

# You just thank the Lord. #

But with the events of 1967,

Berry Gordy and Motown would be given a wake-up call.

With five days of violence, 7,000 arrests, 1,000 injured and 43 dead,

Detroit experienced the worst riot in its history.

My father was able to secure our house.

And take out my mom and...

That was a very scary time.

We left town the next day - I'll never forget it.

As we flew away, we saw the city burning.

The riot signified a lot of things.

It signified a lot of things. It signified class unrest,

it signified racial unrest, but the biggest problem was that it seemed as though

Detroit was becoming ungovernable.

# Set me free Why don't you, babe?

# Get out my life Why don't you, babe? #

All this was bad news for Berry Gordy, whose Motown organisation

was also being challenged in other ways.

In '67, we decided to go on strike because we wanted to have

a part in the business,

a piece of the pie, as it were.

Our own artists.

Maybe a deal subsidiary, like people did.

Gordy, though, was never going to give up any part of his Motown empire.

There was to be no negotiation.

After notching up over 40 hits in the US alone for the likes of The Supremes,

Martha And The Vandellas and The Four Tops,

Holland-Dozier-Holland left Motown for good.

That was just a backbreaker to me.

I mean, to all of us.

I wanted to go with them so bad, I didn't know what to do.

Normally, we were very close as buddies. I mean, we were chummy chums.

But we knew that the magic pair was leaving, as well.

But we didn't realise how bad that would affect us until after they had really gone.

Many feared that the departure of Holland-Dozier-Holland

was the end of the Motown story.

But Gordy showed that his company was bigger than any producer, any writer

and any artist.

With a new writing team, he addressed all his critics with The Supremes' biggest hit to date.

# Hold on... #

Socially, so much had changed in the latter part of the '60s.

And especially here in America.

Holland-Dozier had left, there was pressure on the writers

to get a hit for the Supremes.

And so Berry Gordy and some of the members got together and they formed this group called "The Committee",

or whomever was the writers for Love Child,

and came up with this real social aware song - Love Child.

# You think that I don't feel love

# But what I feel for you is real love

# In other's eyes I see reflected

# A hurt, scorned, rejected

# Love child... #

I thought that was very ingenious,

although it was reminiscent, the arrangements and everything, of previous stuff

that HDH had done.

I thought the subject matter was just right on the button.

The newly christened Diana Ross and the Supremes,

with new member Cindy Birdsong replacing Florence Ballard,

are seen in ghetto gear, sporting Afro hair on the album cover.

But for Middle America's number one TV programme, the Ed Sullivan Show,

a toned-down look had to be employed.

# I started my life in an old, cold Run-down tenement slum

# My father left He never even married Mom

# I shared the guilt my mama knew So afraid that others knew I had no name

# Ah-h-h...

# This love we're contemplating Is worth the pain of waiting

# We'll only end up hating The child we may be creating

# Love child, love child Never meant to be

-# Love child

-Scorned by...

-society

# Love child

# Always second best

# Love child

# Different from the rest

# Hold on, hold on Just a little bit... #

We were now part of the social issues of America.

And we were women.

And we were talking about something that meant something to us.

We were very aware that it was a social statement

and we were very happy that finally we were mature.

We were always trying to be mature.

The Supremes and Motown had grown up and come of age.

With Love Child, Gordy had shown that his company had the ability to adapt

and change with the times.

I think we kind of covered so many levels,

and it's a body of work that is the important thing in Motown.

It's not one song, one artist, anything.

It's a body of work that made a whole lot of people happy around the world.

After Love Child, Gordy left Detroit

and moved his headquarters to Los Angeles,

where a new generation of writers and producers successfully put social issues

at the forefront of their music.

Gordy's empire entered a second golden age.

But the sound that had encapsulated the spirit and optimism of the '60s

was now part of history.

The age of innocence of Motown was over.

# Mother, mother

# There's too many of you crying

# Brother, brother, brother

# There's far too many of you dying

# You know We've got to find the way

# To bring some lovin' here today

# Father, father We don't need to escalate... #

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