Word: motown
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Billy Dee's fortunes have risen rapidly in the past five years, since Motown Records Mogul Berry Gordy became his manager and teamed him with another Gordy protegee, Diana Ross...
...equipped patrol cars have quashed what was once a standard form of recreation for many Michigan youths. At the tame speed limit of 50, the expanse of Woodward is now a half-hour drive, past Kentucky Fried Chicken and bullet proof liquor stores, closed automobile factories, the now-deserted Motown records building, Cass Corridor--one of the nation's most crime-infested districts--several middle-class neighborhoods, and Bloomfield Hills, the nation's wealthiest per capita suburb. On a typical ride down Woodward the motorist is not likely to see buses; public transportation has never been a popular cause...
...they have few compliments-the film has just broken Broadway theater records held by Jaws and The Godfather. The receipts have made Berry Gordy Jr., 45, the most powerful new director in the business. That power derives from his triple role as founder, chairman and 95% owner of Motown Industries. The company was founded in 1960, shortly after Gordy quit the Ford assembly line in Detroit. The ex-professional featherweight boxer started with $800 borrowed from his father, a Georgia-born plasterer. Motown grossed $48 million last year on the combined earnings of its record label, one of the country...
White Listeners. One should not dismiss too lightly any of the director's musings on success. It is one subject that he knows all about. Students of the Motown sound have long contended that it was Gordy's basic gimmick-the smoothing and packaging of rhythm and blues-that drew white listeners to his label. Essentially, he applied the same formula to his profitable production of Lady Sings the Blues, turning the hard life and times of Singer Billie Holiday into a muzzy backstage love story. It is also what happens in Mahogany. "I wanted to bring...
Gordy is disdainful of all criticism, personal and professional. The harsh reviews? They are merely "attacks on an uppity black." As for frequent rumors that Motown is Mob financed, Gordy counters: "We have a choice of suing people for such stories or ignoring them." Employee resentment over his dictatorial managerial style is not so easily dismissed. "If I ever wrote a book," says one Motown staffer, "I'd call it God Is on Extension 274-that's Berry...