Part street corner symphony… storefront church gospel…. jazz joint on a Saturday night – Motown Records founded January 12, 1959

On 12 January 1959, the music sensation that changed America – and the world beyond it – was set in motion. Detroit-born 29-year-old Berry Gordy founded Tamla Records with an $800 loan from his family’s collective savings.

The ‘Motown Sound’ is unmistakeable for its glorious melodies and killer hooks; the Motown spirit .

Motown’s name was rooted in industry and community: a nod to the ‘Motor Town’ nickname of its native city. Prior to founding the label, Gordy had also worked on production lines at the Lincoln-Mercury car plant.

He set up the label’s base in a modest two-storey house at 2648 West Grand Boulevard, also known as Hitsville USA.

The Motown Sound owes some of its uniqueness to the reverb effect created by pumping tracks through the label’s Echo Chamber, in the days before computers and synthesizers

Down in the so-called “snake pit” of Studio A, The Funk Brothers backed Motown’s finest artists at all hours of the day

Part street corner symphony… Part storefront church gospel…. Part jazz joint on a Saturday night.

• Motown was the first record label to run its own ‘charm school’ for artists who were taught how to perform.

• In 1966 Berry Gordy refused to sign the Jackson Five because he didn’t want to work with any more children. It was Gladys Knight who persuaded him to change his mind a year later.

• Motown is the only record label to get into the Collins English dictionary.

• When Motown’s songwriting team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland left the label in 1967 in a dispute over money, it led to a six-year legal battle. An out-of-court settlement was reached.

SOURCE: BBC, Motown Museum