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

that were associated with Motown records, many people today know and can recognize.
Ways Motown used to get their records out there and known was different from how anyone else was doing it before.

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

as the music was good. That being said starting out the black Motown artists were not able to express themselves as freely as the white artist of the time. Still having to wear the wigs and makeup. They were still not given enough credit, as the whites. Even though many people no matter the color was listening to them and singing along to their songs. Many white folk told others it was not right listening to a colored singer, but the ones like The Supremes and The Temptations were accepted and they, like many more well known artists of this time was part of the Motown records. By accepting these artists more and more people started seeing the change and heading in the positive direction of the Civil Rights movement. These artist began voicing their opinions about the things going on in the country at the time, but they put it in their music as messages and an easier way of hearing it. They made these messages settle to the listener so it would not cause chaos, in a negative way. One of the examples of implementing Civil Rights in the black artists songs; The Supremes sang the famous song ‘Somewhere’ live on the Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show the night Martin Luther King Jr. and changed their lyrics that were spoken to his famous I have a Dream speech. This not only honored him, but showed that just because he was gone the movement was still going to move on. Not only did they show off his speech live, but before he died when he wrote the speech Motown records let him record it in their studios, so it could be spread to everyone even if they were not there the day he spoke live. These are just some of the examples that Motown helped with the Civil Rights movement directly and indirectly, but that did not mean that it was always rainbows and butterflies for the company. Not everything was a mutual agreement.
With great success that Motown had with the Civil Rights movement came some downsides.

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

their music. Even though these artists were still not recognized the same or the same time the white artists were, they still opened the door to a better united country. So Motown was not only a town or record label it was a symbol for the greater good.