Studio A

I don’t know why I was surprised to find the Motown Museum in Detroit. I guess that shows my ignorance of American culture. Ironically ignorance of the Canadian culture is something we northerners tend to accuse our southern neighbors of too easily. Regardless, for all its greatness and cultural impacts, Motown emerged from five little houses along Grand Boulevard. One house for the finance department, one house for the music school that would teach the Motown artists music theory and choreography, one for the sales and public relations departments, one where the stars learned to behave, dress, and conduct themselves like stars, and one to house the infamous Studio A.

The museum itself consists of two small unassuming houses. Only the crowd on the front lawn and the Hitsville sign on the house gave any clues to the treasures that lie inside. The Marvelettes, the Velvelettes, the Temptations, the Supremes, and the Jackson are but a few of the wonders to have started from humble beginnings in Studio A. Modeled after the Ford Assembly line, Motown and Studio A operated as an assembly line for young talent that would enter Barry Gordy’s brain child as raw talent and emerge as superstar caliber artists. Ironically Barry Gordy stole this idea of an assembly line for talent from his time working on the Ford assembly line, a job he hated even though it was a key part of his inspiration.

I made the journey with Brooks family, who happen to be native Detroiters. We had a great tour guide, who had a little trouble separating himself from the giants whose stories he was telling. He kept using words like, “We would do this. We would do that.” As if he were actually there when Diana Ross was recording her licks, which was a little distracting. Other than that, he was incredibly knowledge and shared great insights into Barry Gordy’s business acumen and talents. Gordy had a good role model for entrepreneurship in his father who owned five family businesses. The Gordy’s had eight kids and as they grew up each kid would contribute $10 a month to the family coop, then each had an opportunity to borrow from the family coop and start their own business. This is exactly what Barry Gordy did. He started Motown or Tamala (http://45-sleeves.com/USA/tamla/taml-us.htm) as the original label was called with an $800 loan from the Gordy family coop fund.

Interestingly many of the Motown artists knew each other from childhood and grew up within blocks of each other. This leant a family atmosphere to the business and created an environment where many artists collaborated with each other. It seems that in the 50s and 60s Detroit was a literal cesspool of talent emerging upon the world. Like most people, I had read about Motown, not all of it very nice in regards to Barry Gordy, but no one can argue his success or that of his artists.

The greatest part was that the tour didn’t end at Studio A. Afterward we went to an amazing little restaurant in Greek Town, called the Golden Fleece, then onto the Astoria Bakery for desert. The array of treats in the Astoria was a little overwhelming and I was barely able to constrain myself to a simple chocolate dipped rice crispy square. We ended the afternoon with a tour of Mrs. Brooks’s childhood neighborhood someplace the Detroit born couple wouldn’t visit after dark. It was a stark reminder of the contrast of what Detroit was and what it is now.