A History Of Motown Records

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A history of motown records And the influences it has on music today. Tamla Records was founded on 12th January 1959 by Detroit born Berry Gordy. It was later renamed as Motown Records on April 14th 1960. Gordy started to record artists in a property he bought for $800, this headquarters of Motown Records became known as Hitsville USA. Motown played an important role in the racial integration of music as it was the first record company to be owned by an african-american and consisted mainly of african-american artists who achieved crossover success in the 1960’s. “Into the '60s, I was still not of a frame of mind that we were not only making music, we were making history. But I did recognize the impact because acts were going all over the world at that time. I recognized the bridges that we crossed, the racial problems and the barriers that we broke down with music. I recognized that because I lived it. I would come to the South in the early days of Motown and the audiences would be segregated. Then they started to get the Motown music and we would go back and the audiences were integrated and the kids were dancing together and holding hands” (Smokey Robinson, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motown) There were seven labels within the Motown Company; these were Motown records, Tamla records, Gordy records, check-mate records, soul records, V.I.P. records and mo-west records. Each with their own sound. There were several genres of music within Motown such as, rhythm and blues, soul, contemporary r’n’b, pop, hip-hop and pop rock. Tamla’s first release was “come to me” by Marv Johnson in 1959 however Tamla’s first hit was “money (that’s what i want)” by Barrett Strong which made it to number 2 in the billboard r’n’b charts. Motown had its own sound which became known as “the Motown sound”. In 1960 The Miracles released “Shop around” on the Tamla label; this was to

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