Berry Gordy good or bad?

[Fiftyboiledeggs]

For me he was the Russ Winstanley of Detroit soul music.  I mean he did not want to release What's Going on. WTF

[Davey S]

I think what was achieved at Motown was nothing short of incredible and it involved a hugh amount of talent . If Berry Gordy was in fact responsible for orchestrating all this talent and making final decisions then you have to say he was indeed a good Boss.

[Fiftyboiledeggs]

Agreed commercially very astute. But he forgot about the music along the way and squandered the talents of many artists. The Isleys and The Detroit  Spinners got lucky by leaving. 

 

[Midnight Drifter]

There is no simple answer to that question if you asked me. All his work and influence which is always interdependent with other people's work, etc. - a really complicated thing, you could write (more) books about it.. 
 

And after all, what does good or bad mean with regards to a man's character - this is a highly subjective matter. 
 

Personally, I would never find myself in a position to answer that question though it could be an interesting kick off for a long thread..

[Soulfulsolutions]

For many years I’d taken an uninformed unlike (not as strong as a dislike) to Berry, based on his failed relationship with Raynoma, and what I read or thought I read was, his interfering / undermining her own business interests, namely Shrine with Eddie Singleton.  I almost blamed Berry for the demise of Shrine and therefore my access to this mythical catalogue.

Beyond that Ive never really payed attention to whether he or any other Motown employee was good or bad, lets face it theres good and bad everywhere and we all interpret or assess it differently.  I’m not even sure we should be talking about him in the sense of a boss.

I’m not an aficionado, i haven’t read anyones studied accounts, but iI have watched and rewatched the laymans documentary Hitsville - The making of Motown, and I marvelled at the description of Motowns operating model based on the assembly line of Detroits motor industry, so all he did in my opinion was follow the plan, and yes, he may have upset some people, missed some obvious talent, ignored and discarded the odd bang on hit along the way, but I don’t think he or his colleagues, who were equally responsible in making the decisions based on individual votes, were personally at fault, it was simply a business model that they adhered to and now stands as a shining example of global and timeless success, made even more impressive by the social and poliical barriers of the time, or now for that matter.

Lets face it without the whole of Motown, not just Berrys commitment to the Company, every artist and every track could have been commercially released, so its the Quality Control stamp on Frank Wilsons - Do I love you, that tells the story, why else have we been blessed with the opportunity of a lifetime of unravelling fading knowledge and chasing the tapes, acetates, various pressings, memorabilia and all the amazing tales.  

Bless them all, I love their music and achievements

Edited June 2, 2021 by Soulfulsolutions

[Mssoulie]

Motown wouldn't exist without him. Just saying

[Timillustrator]

He was a product of his time and forged an enormously successful label against massive odds. If you look at the mid sixties output of a lot of Motown artists though, he reflected one thread of thinking - a lot of them were pushed towards recording "standards" in the belief that "pop" music only had a short life and the best way to ensure people would have a long term career was to make them into all round entertainers and establish them in the more lucrative and adult cabaret circuit.

So you can understand that when people like Marvin and Stevie were leaning towards the opposite a few years later and started experimenting and becoming more progressive he wasn't massively in favour. 

You can see the same thinking in a lot of people at the same time though the Beach Boys were torn apart by Brian Wilson going into full experimental psychedelia and Mike Love wanting to stick with "the formula". A lot of British artists were given the Mickie Most treatment (Jeff Beck, Terry Reid, The Yardbirds) to try and produce pop hits when the artists themselves wanted to go psychedelic or hard rock route resulting in tension and sometimes pop singles and rock albums. The tension between going avant-garde and pop hits was exactly the same in Motown. 

[Carty]

"The line dividing  good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being"    Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

[Tomangoes]

Most of the interviews I've seen, especially Smokey Robinson, do not paint Berry Gordy in a bad light.

He comes over to me as a typical no nonsense boss who drove the label from small time to big time.

The usual cliche is that he was more effective than popular.

I don't think theres a great deal of comparable values between running the motown corporation and Wigan casino to be honest.

Ed

[Mickey Finn]

Like us all he made mistakes and was guilty of poor judgment from time to time. That doesn't take away from his achievement, which for most people seems to be the amazing run of music recorded up until around 1970, when things really had to change, one way or another. Not only was society changing, the music itself had to evolve. Artists like Marvin and Stevie were youngsters now coming of age and wanting to prove themselves as creative artists, rather than working to order. Having established an amazingly successful formula and exercising firm control over the company, no surprise if Berry was late to this game. But he relented eventually and we have a set of amazing releases that cover the period of transition when Motown relocated from Detroit to LA.

It's that move that sticks in my craw. Having bought up just about all the competing labels in Detroit, and done his best to monopolise access to the musical talent there, he shuts up shop and takes as much away from the place as he can. Maybe the writing was already on the wall for Detroit as a place and he was just ahead of the game, but Motown's departure must have contributed significantly to Detroit's economic decline.

LA had better weather, great recording studios and the cream of west coast session players, but Berry was also eager to get into the movie business and switched his focus away from the music. That might have been good for allowing the musicians and producers greater freedom, but it also meant that by the 80s Motown had lost any claim to quality control of the kind it once had. Instead of setting its own standards it was hiring outsiders to lead projects that were little different production-wise from what other labels were releasing.

No surprise if it just eventually became too big to manage, but in Berry's defence we would not be having this discussion if he had not set such high standards and invested in the right people during the 60s. He created something that was able to sustain itself for years after he gave up trying to control everything, and which gave us some wonderful performers who were given the chance to make rich sets of recordings that we're still enjoying and even unearthing today.

 

[Okehsoul1952]

If you get the opportunity to read 'Fame without Fortune' - the Al Cleveland story.....it's an interesting inside story concerning a songwriter's experience working for Berry Gordy and writing huge hits, notably Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye. It goes on to describe how Gordy wasn't paying him, royalties not being paid and regular IRS raids as a direct consequence of Gordy's intervention. The book starts off pretty well but loses its way a bit as you go along.....you finish the book thinking what a control freak he was, and was prepared to walk over anyone, at any cost.

[Timillustrator]

1 hour ago, Okehsoul1952 said:

If you get the opportunity to read 'Fame without Fortune' - the Al Cleveland story.....it's an interesting inside story concerning a songwriter's experience working for Berry Gordy and writing huge hits, notably Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye. It goes on to describe how Gordy wasn't paying him, royalties not being paid and regular IRS raids as a direct consequence of Gordy's intervention. The book starts off pretty well but loses its way a bit as you go along.....you finish the book thinking what a control freak he was, and was prepared to walk over anyone, at any cost.

Looks good, not too pricey either:

www.amazon.co.uk/Without-Fortune-Motown-Records-Cleveland/dp/1883283841

 

Edited June 2, 2021 by Timillustrator

[Mickey Finn]

Yep, the ruthlessness is there in the way he handled the local competition in the style of the classic monopolist and his subsequent decision to relocate the entire company.

Thanks for the tip re the book!

[Hooker1951]

Hard question to answer but probably on balance did more good than bad but nobody’s perfect, falling in Love with Diane Ross didn’t help some of his artists probably clouded his judgement on some music issues , but he did what he did and will never be forgotten like not thinking Marvin What’s going on was not good enough to release will always be remembered

Stay Safe

ML