Gordy originally wanted to name the label Tammy Records, after the hit song popularized by Debbie Reynolds from the 1957 film Tammy and the Bachelor, in which Reynolds also starred. After some debate, his family agreed, and in January 1959 “Come to Me” was released regionally on Gordy's new Tamla label. Needing $800 to cover his end of the deal, Gordy asked his family to borrow money from a cooperative family savings account. Seeing that the song had great crossover potential, Gordy leased it to United Artists for national distribution but also released it locally on his own startup imprint. In 1958, Gordy wrote and produced " Come to Me" for Marv Johnson. Gordy recorded a number of other records by forging a similar arrangement, most significantly with United Artists. "Got a Job" was the first single by Robinson's group, now called the Miracles. The practice was common at the time for a small-time producer. In 1958, Gordy recorded the group's song "Got a Job" (an answer song to " Get a Job" by the Silhouettes), and released it as a single by leasing the record to a larger company outside Detroit called End Records, based in New York. Gordy was interested in the doo-wop style that Robinson sang. In 1957, Gordy met Smokey Robinson, who at the time was a local seventeen-year-old singer fronting a vocal harmony group called the Matadors. Motown building, at 2648 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit, Motown's headquarters from 1959 to 1968, which became the Motown Historical Museum in 1985 Between 19, Gordy wrote or produced over a hundred sides for various artists, with his siblings Anna, Gwen and Robert, and other collaborators in varying combinations. During the next eighteen months, Gordy helped to write six more Wilson A-sides, including " Lonely Teardrops", a peak-popular hit of 1958. " Reet Petite" was their first major hit which appeared in November 1957. Gordy soon became part of a group of songwriters-with his sister Gwen Gordy and Billy Davis-who wrote songs for Wilson. He frequented Detroit's downtown nightclubs, and in the Flame Show Bar he met bar manager Al Green (not the famed singer), who owned a music publishing company called Pearl Music and represented Detroit-based musician Jackie Wilson. (The Gordys were an entrepreneurial family.) Although the shop did not last very long, Gordy's interest in the music business did not fade. History Beginnings of Motown īerry Gordy's interest in the record business began when he opened a record store called the 3D Record Mart, a shop where he hoped to "educate customers about the beauty of jazz", in Detroit, Michigan.
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