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A Time to Sing
Much of the music of the 1960s came from Michigan. Aretha Franklin, Bob Seger, Del
Shannon, Della Reese, the Mysterians, Grand Funk Railroad and Ted Nugent performed
with established record companies on the east and west coasts.
Berry Gordy Jr., was a former boxer, a Korean War veteran and a trimmer in Ford's
Wayne Assembly Plant. In 1959, he borrowed $800 from his family and started his own record
company. The family loan became a musical empire at "Hitsville, USA," a frame
house at 2648 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit. Gordy named his record label
"Motown" in 1962.
By 1966, three of every four Motown releases made the pop charts. Sometimes recording
all night, Motown musicians sang of love, pain, happiness and despair.
The Motown Sound put the city of Detroit on the map. Its stars included Smokey
Robinson, the Miracles, the Marvelettes, Mary Wells, Gladys Knight & the Pips, the
Supremes, the Temptations, the Four Tops, The Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye, Martha Reeves and
the Vandellas, Edwin Starr and Brenda Holloway.
Little Stevie Wonder (Steveland Morris), born in Saginaw and raised in Detroit, signed
with Motown in 1960. He was just ten years old then and soon divided his time between
performing and attending the Michigan School for the Blind. You can see his harmonica in
the 1960s gallery.
In 1988, Gordy sold Motown Records to MCA and moved to California. He kept the
publishing and film-making divisions. Hitsville, the house where it all began, became a
museum, the Motown Historical Museum.
You can learn more about the music from the 60s by listening to records and CDs and
making an album cover.
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