The Story of Motown

By: Peter Benjaminson, Greil Macus - foreword

Narrated by: Sean Crisden

In January 1959, Berry Gordy borrowed $800 from his family and founded the Detroit-based record company that in less than a decade was to become the largest Black-owned business in the United States. It also became one of the most productive and influential producers of popular music anywhere in the world.

The Story of Motown is the story of Berry Gordy's triumph over powerful, established financial interests, entrenched popular taste, bigotry, and racism. By inventing a sound that appealed to Whites as well as Blacks, and that was immediately identifiable to an entire generation of listeners, Gordy demonstrated his genius as a producer; by the sheer force of his will, he demonstrated that a Black man from the urban ghetto could aspire to and conquer the heights of traditional American business, including the movie business. Unfortunately, while doing all of this, he also found new ways to exploit his talented artists and eventually lost many of them to companies that paid them more. The Story of Motown is the story of the rise and fall of one of the most important cultural touchstones in American history.

©2018 Peter Benjaminson (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Worth the listen…

I have to admit the Motown sound was probably the soundtrack of my musical upbringing.

Sure there were other major stars that had hits but “Hitsville” never disappointed no matter who was performing.

Glad that I took this tome on…a great background piece on the man behind the label and the stars that made it special.

Highly recommended !

The Remarkable Rise of Motown Records..

... and the particular genius of high-school dropout and sometime songwriter Berry Gordy, who harvested the little-known talent of Detroit's African-American singers, musicians, and songwriters and, in relatively short order, created Motown, a musical empire, with a distinctive sound, artist stage presence, and a huge crossover audience onto white radio, a key element in Gordy's commercial intent. This is a tale well told, warts and all, that filled a considerable hole in my historical understanding just how Gordy created the background make-out music of my teen years. Fwiw, I bought The Contours, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Temptations, Four Tops (the last three of which I saw in concert) without knowing a thing about Berry Gordy, whose name was little more than a record label to me. My crowd just loved the music,.and we listened to it as eagerly and we listened to, and watched on TV, the Beatles and Stones. I was a little disappointed the book didn't tell the story of Gordy's sale of Motown Records in 1988, but the "rise, conquer, and fall" story, up to the almost total departure for greener pastures of most of Motown's talent in the late 1960s through the1970s, was for me sufficient.

Business details

Enjoyed this read from the perspective of a music business professional. In that way, it was informative.

A Brief Music History

Overall informative without a lot of detail. The time lines move very quick and are brief on explanations.
The book just makes me want a comprehensive look at Motown records.

Basic highlights

I truly feel that no one will be able to tell Barry Gordy’s story other than Barry Gordy no one can tell you Motown’s story other than Barry Gordy and possibly Smokey Robinson and this book I feel like It gave you some highlights but I feel that a lot of what made Motown what Motown is was is left out