Motown Records, Founded on This Day in 1959, Broke Racial Barriers in Pop Music With Its Beloved Hits

On January 12, 1959, Berry Gordy Jr. started Tamla Records with the help of an $800 loan from his family, starting a journey that would forever change the music industry. The following year, it merged into Motown Record Corporation.

For Gordy, starting his own label was the product of a longtime love of music. When he returned from Army service in 1953, he opened a short-lived record store in Detroit. Later, to amuse himself on the Ford assembly line, Gordy would make up songs. Eventually, he found himself writing for singer Jackie Wilson and helping young singer William “Smokey” Robinson and his band, best known as the Miracles, sell records.

The limited returns—one royalty check Gordy received is said to have been for just $3.19—are part of what motivated him to start Motown. “Back in those days, especially if you were Black, nobody was paying you what you should be paid, if they paid you at all. So Berry decided to start his own record company and gave us that outlet,” Robinson told AARP Magazine in 2018.

In an industry dominated by just a handful of major labels, success was no small feat. The industry tended to market music by Black artists—usually all lumped under the umbrella of “rhythm and blues”—solely to Black audiences. Those R&B tunes often only reached a white audience if a white artist like Pat Boone or Elvis Presley decided to cover them.

To succeed, Gordy needed to appeal to the majority-Black R&B market and the broader, majority-white “pop” audience. Indeed, an early analysis of Motown’s success from Fortune magazine credits Gordy’s financial success to his ability to attract talented Black artists and “recognize those tunes, lyrics and audio effects” that would appeal to Black and white listeners alike.

In addition to creating songs with mass appeal, Gordy focused on marketing to white audiences, including hiring white marketers to use their connections in the industry. Sometimes, he avoided putting musicians on album covers so they wouldn’t be immediately discounted because of their race.

Motown’s first album was Hi… We’re the Miracles, released in 1961. The album included “Shop Around,” Motown’s first single to sell more than a million copies.

The label quickly hit its stride. Motown songs kept up with tunes by bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and earworms from groups like the Supremes helped Motown sell more 45s than any other company in the nation. By 1971, it had put out 110 Billboard Top 10 hits.

The integration of Motown’s acts into the upper echelons of the pop charts had a ripple effect, leading groups like the Supremes to be invited to play clubs with predominantly white audiences. They weren’t always welcomed with open arms: Several Motown artists, including the Contours’ Joe Billingslea, have recounted the racism they experienced while touring.

Gordy was hesitant to let artists try to send a message with their music. For example, he initially vetoed Marvin Gaye’s incredibly successful 1971 album What’s Going On because it talked about social and political issues. He only relented when Gaye threatened never to work with him again.

“I never wanted Motown to be a mouthpiece for civil rights,” he told TIME in 2020. Instead, he saw the label as an example of a successful Black business and a force for integration through music. Still, Gordy and Motown took an active role in civil rights history by recording Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, unknowingly creating an important archive of the now-famous address.

“I saw Motown much like the world [King] was fighting for—people of all races and religions, working together harmoniously for a common goal,” Gordy told TIME. Gordy later sold the label, but its beginning and golden era left a profound mark on history.

“Our music made you feel good, but we also had a message of equality,” Martha Reeves, of Motown’s Martha and the Vandellas, told NPR in 2011. “It's just the sound of young America.”

Teresa Nowakowski | | READ MORE

Teresa Nowakowski is a print and multimedia journalist based in Chicago. They cover history, arts and culture, science, travel, food and other topics.