Berry Gordy Jr.: The Birth Of Motown

After the band played local club circuits for about a year, they were discovered by Johnny Bristol, who in turn brought Harvey Fuqua into the picture. Fuqua owned Harvey Records and Anna Records, but eventually sold them to his brother in law, Berry Gordy. Berry

2.With performers like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gay, the Temptations, and Diana Ross and the Supremes, Motown Records changed music history. Who founded Motown Records in 1959?

They blended country music with R&B in a unique way that hadn’t been done before. However, the way they got their big breaks was significantly different. Chuck Berry had created a quartet while he was in prison for auto theft. He had obstacles ahead of him as a black man that Elvis would never have. In fact, Elvis had just walked into Sun Studios to privately record his music, a very different opportunity that Berry would not have gotten.

Elvis Presley was signed to Sun Records in 1954. This was monumental for Phillips’s stand on racial boundaries in music. Elvis drew national attention to Sun Records which, in part, sparked slight popularity for other Sun artists such as Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King, and Roscoe Gordon (Sun Records 1). This point in time is known as the origin of Rock and Roll. Contrary to what Rock and Roll is now, it was only popular within a certain demographic of people for a long time

Chuck Berry’s big break came when he went to Chicago in May of 1955 and met up with Muddy Waters who suggested he contact Chess Records. As a result he recorded “Maybellene” which went on to sell over a million copies and rose up to number one on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues chart. Berry was a success and popular by the end of the 50s. He opened up his own nightclub in St. Louis, Missouri Berry’s Club Bandstand.

B.B. King or ‘The King of Blues’ was born in Itta Bena, Mississippi. His young parents unfortunately divorced, and his mother passed away when he was 9 years old which left him to be raised by his grandmother. King attended school until the 10th grade when he dropped out of school and started to work at a cotton gin near his hometown. Despite dropping out of school he continued to teach himself math and different languages well into his later life. He worked at the cotton gin earning a penny a pound and singing gospel music on street corners. His musical career started when he was studying under his cousin Bukka White. King met a woman and was married at 17 years old. “I guess I was looking for love, because I never had anybody I believed truly loved me” (B.B. King). The marriage quickly came to end when they got a divorce months later. “Since my early childhood, I had a problem trying to open up. Please open me up. Look inside!

Shortly after all that Chuck Berry was very quick to follow with a bundle of other unique singles that seemed to continue to mold out what appeared to be the new genre of rock 'n ' roll. These single included "Roll Over, Beethoven," "Too Much Monkey Business" and "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man," these are just a few songs among many others. Chuck Berry had managed to “achieve crossover appeal with white youths without alienating his black fans by mixing blues and R&B sounds with storytelling that spoke to the universal themes of youth” (Encyclopedia of World Biography). In the late 1950s, songs like "Johnny B. Goode," "Sweet Little Sixteen" and "Carol" had all made the Top 10 chart of pop music by accomplishing the equal popularity with youths on both sides of the racial divide (Biography.com. A&E Networks Television). "I made records for people who would buy them," Berry said. "No color, no ethnic, no political I don 't want that, never did. ' ' (Rolling Stone)

In 1951, Alan Freed, a European American disc jockey for a Cleveland radio station, first coined the term rock’n roll. Fifty years later, if you were to poll the general public on which race would dominate that genre of music, the response would be overwhelmingly whites. But rock’n roll is not a white mans music. African American’s were and still are an essential cornerstone of the genre known as rock’n roll. But rock’n roll simply would not exist if it weren't for African Americans. Their presence is felt in almost every genre of music known to the United States. Early twentieth century black musicians helped shape, influence and create my favorite genre of music today.

Motown Records was founded in 1959 by Berry Gordy who turned his music production company into history’s most successful black-owned record label company.

     The birth of Motown music came to be in a small recording studio aptly named Hitsville, U.S.A. Barry Gordy, who came from a large middle class family had borrowed money in order. The main stage of Motown music came from a small house that had been remodeled into a recording studio, the name of the company was Hitsville, U.S.A. Mr. Gordy had gathered the best jazz and blues players in and Motown was born through his genius. This small but dynamic

Motown was a label record company founded by Berry Gordy Jr, which played a dominate part in the American Music industry between 1959 and 1988. Throughout its run, Motown produced several successful artists, classic singles, and albums. Among the most known of these artists were, Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robison, the Jackson Five, and Marvin Gaye.

This judgment began unexpectedly to spread as African American music, especially the blues and jazz, became a worldwide sensation. Black music provided the pulse of the Harlem Renaissance and of the Jazz Age more generally. The rise of the “race records” industry, beginning with OKeh’s recording of Mamie Smith’s

For more than half a century, Riley B. King -better known as B.B. King- has defined the blues for a worldwide audience. Since he started recording in the 1940s, he has released over fifty albums (many of them classics). B.B. was born September 16, 1925, on a plantation in Itta Bena,

In the 1960's, America was ready for a change. Black rhythm and blues known as Motown became popular. Bob

His contract with Motown expired in 1971, rather than re-signing right away, as the label expected, Wonder financed the recording of two albums of his own material, playing almost all the instruments himself, and experimenting for the first time with more determined musical forms. He pioneered the use of the synthesizer in Black Music, and also broadened his lyrical concerns to include racial problems and spiritual questions. Wonder then used these recordings as a lift to convince Motown to offer a more open contract, which gave him complete artistic control over his music, plus the chance to hold the rights to the music publishing with his own company, Black Bull Music. The signing of the contract with the release of the solo recordings 'Where I'm Coming' From and 'Music Of My Mind', which, despite warm serious reaction, quickly established him at the head of black music.