Motown: The Legendary Motown

The Legendary Motown
Motown is not only a nickname for a town, it is also a record label that really got the ball rolling for the crossover in the blending of music, the Civil Rights movement and even culture as we see it today. It may have had its downsides, but many can agree it worked out alright.
The founder of Motown records was Berry Gordy. He founded the company in 1959. The label was located in Detroit Michigan. It got shortened to Motown because Detroit was known for the nickname of the motor and town. The music that Motown created, symbolized coming-of-age and celebration and how it is timeless and how it was still important to most people. Berry Gordy wanted to create a sound that anyone would like. Most of the music and artists

They would not put the real artists on the label if they were colored. They simply blended songs and black and white artists to make a new sound. Mr. Gordy would make the African American artists “whiten” up their look. He went against the social norms of regular music of this decade causing a little push from the African American artists he signed over. But in the end he felt it was heading in the right direction and that it would be worth it in the end. An obvious example of the “whiteing up” the artists was that the females had to wear wigs with straight hair that mimicked the white person's hair texture. This image simply got to the public and helped soften the artists look, which lead in the helping for white people to start to accept the music being played and listened to by the younger generation. This helped a lot with the time period of the Civil Rights movement. Motown helped with the Civil Rights movement by showing that when it comes to music there is no color barriers. It did not matter what color you were as long

Examples mostly point to how Berry Gordy manipulated the way things were put out there and how they would favorable to a big audience. The way he told the black artists to do their hair and makeup can be looked at as making them white instead embracing their color. Also when he put records out the pictures were never of the artists always symbols. The reason he did this was so the people could not judge the album before even listening to it. Like everyone says “never judge a book by its cover”, that never truly stayed true for everyone. But by doing this the artist never got recognized by bigger corporations and never got the credit for what they did. Gordy’s style was different from most and some if not most artist really struggled in understanding why he did not use their face or made them look like white people. They were often really offended by it and as were the white people. So there was a push and pull with the people. A give and take with the music, but ultimately the artist sacrificed the fame and fortune to come together for a greater cause and change the country needed. Also later the artists were recognized and appreciated. With the ups and downs of Motown it really helped bring things together. Giving music the grey area no one thought existed or even wanted to believe existed. It helped the Civil Rights movement by changing the way white people looked at black artists and