Berry Gordy was born November the 28th 1929 in Detroit, Michigan and was the seventh sibling born parented by Berry Gordy, Sr and Bertha Fuller Gordy.
Berry was born into a middle class family so was granted more privileges than others however his parents believed in strong morals which portrayed them as a tight-knited family.
Being born in Detroit was a huge privilege for Berry as growing up he would learn that was plenty of business opportunities especially in the automobile business which the black community encouraged stressfully.
By eleventh grade, Berry dropped out of school to become a professional boxer in hopes of becoming rich quick which even myself and many of others aspire to at a younger age which sometimes included footballer or a rockstar.From this interest of becoming a boxer, Berry perused it after dropping out of school until 1950 where he was drafted by the U.S army for the Korean war where he would spend three years before returning.
After returning from the Korean war in 1953 it was this time that Berry started forming and creating a very high interest in music which began to merge into a very gifted trait of is which was songwriting.
He was quickly following this trait by opening a small record store which was mainly based around Jazz music.
As the store was unsuccessful by lack of customers and revenue Berry was offered a job at a local talent bar where he meat Jackie Wilson.
Jackie Wilson recorded "Reet Petite" which Berry had co-written. By this time Berry was starting to develop and put together ideas on what he wanted to do as a career.
One of Berry's most successful career highlights was the invention of Motown, a business idea taken from the way automobiles where wade on a continuous rotating carousel. The idea berry had was to bring the artist in, record the track and the artist would leave and the process would start again.
In 1957 Berry reinvested in successful songwriting profits and began to produce. It was also this year that he discovered "The Miracles" and began to build a portfolio of successful artists. From encouragement from certain artists, Berry borrowed $800 from his family to start up Tamla Records, a small rhythm and blues label (R&B). By 1959, The Miracles released "Bad Girls" which was the first ever release under the early Motown movement. In February 1960 The Miracles released a number 1 hit "Shop Around".
With Motown being established as a independent company, in 1961 "The Marvelettes" released "please mr postman" which had risen in the charts. Even to this day in my generation the influence of Motown is huge. In 2009 dubstep artist Cragga released his own interpretation of "Please Mr Postman".
By 1960 the two labels Tamla and Motown merged together to become "Motown Record Corporation" which happened on the 14th April.As Berry's thirst for new talent grew and his unbelievable gift for finding it, in the next decade he signed artists such as The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, the velvelettes, Stevie Wonder and The Jackson 5.
With every artist that Berry signed he made sure that there was always careful management and a certain public image which he would maintain for everyone. This is what turned Motown into a Major international success.
Berry kept to a task of not signing white artists in the beginning due to the location in Michigan he wanted to Privilege the black communities in the Northern states where in South you had Blues and swing being originated in New Orleans.
It was a rare occasion that he would sign White artists to the Motown Record Corporation which included "Nick And The Jaguars" and "Mike And The Modifiers".
Even when Motown continued to sell major hits through the 1970's and 1980's Berry decided to sell the interests of Motown Records to the Boston Ventures and MCA in 1988 for $61 million. The reason behind this is that Berry felt what the company/label was before had completely changed. From the carousel idea to having relocated to LA having long term recording artists. He then went on to sell the publishing interests to the label EMI which consisted of about 15,000 songs including the 240 he had co-writen.
Berry Goldy's mansion purchased in 1967
Located: Detroit, Michigan.
