Broadway Grill Restaurant | San Francisco Bay Area - Burlingame,CA | Bar and Grill

MOTOWN PROFILE

Formed:
December 14, 1959 (Detroit, MI) by Berry Gordy, Jr. (b. November 29, 1928, Detroit, MI)
Associated Labels:
Motown, Tamla, Gordy, Soul, Tamla-Motown (UK), Rare Earth, V.I.P, MoWest, Workshop Jazz, Black Forum, Mel-o-dy, Ric-Tic, Divinity, Chisa, Miracle, Anna, Ecology, Latino, Morocco
Famous Artists:
Diana Ross and the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Four Tops, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, The Jackson 5, The Temptations, Martha and the Vandellas, Mary Wells, The Marvelettes, Tammi Terrell, The Isley Brothers, Kim Weston, Jr. Walker and the All-Stars, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Rare Earth, The Commodores, Lionel Richie, Rick James
Contributions to music:
The first American music label owned by an African-American
The first music label to successfully market black artists to white mainstream audiences
Responsible for discovering, mentoring, and perfecting a number of American popular music's most influential and successful artists
Created a "charm school" to ensure that its acts were unformly palatable to the mainstream
Employed the legendary musicians known as The Funk Brothers and the songwriting team of Holland-Dozier-Holland
Early years:
Professional boxer, Korean war vet, and jazz record store owner Berry Gordy began his career in music when family connections led him to meet up and coming singer Jackie Wilson at Detroit's Flame Show Bar. Wilson enjoyed a national hit with "Reet Petite" in 1957, a song co-written by Gordy. By January 1959, Berry had assembled a stable of local talent, and created the Tamla label to produce their hits like Marv Johnson's "You Got What It Takes" and Barrett Strong's "Money (That's What I Want)."
Success:
Urged on by another of his artists, Smokey Robinson, Gordy created the Motown label as a pop counterpart to Tamla's R&B aspirations. 1960's "Shop Around, by Smokey and the Miracles, was the label's first pop smash; Gordy expanded his stable of mostly-black artists, grooming them carefully so as to be "presentable" to white America. 1963's "Come and Get These Memories," by Martha and the Vandellas, debuted the pop-soul "Motown Sound," later labeled by the company as the "Sound of Young America."
Later years:
The hits kept coming, but the 1967 Detroit race riots caused Gordy to move to Los Angeles, and by 1972 the label had followed suit. Some of his main artists were given creative control and stayed, but most, dismayed by his heavy hand, did not. The label enjoyed success through the early Eighties with old and new acts, but by 1988 Gordy had sold the label to MCA; today, Universal Music Group owns the label and EMI its song copyrights. Gordy's net worth is somewhere around half a billion dollars.
Other facts:
Gordy once fought on the same card as legendary boxer Joe Louis
Original name for the Tamla label was "Tammy," after the Debbie Reynolds song, but it was taken
The powerful Jobete publishing company that published Motown songs was named for Gordy's three children: Hazel Joy, Berry IV, and Terry
First record released on any Motown-related label: "Come To Me," Marv Johnson (Tamla 101), January 1959
First release with an actual Motown label: "My Beloved," The Satintones (Motown 1000), February 1960
Landmarks:
1719 Gladstone Street, Detroit, MI (original Tamla offices), 2648 West Grand Boulevard, Detroit, MI (original Motown office and studio), 5750 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 300, Los Angeles, CA (Seventies offices)
Famous Songs, Albums, and Charts:

Biggest hits:

"I Heard It Through The Grapevine," "Let's Get It On," "What's Going On," "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)," Marvin Gaye
"I'll Be There," "ABC," "I Want You Back," The Jackson 5
"Baby Love," "Where Did Our Love Go," "You Keep Me Hangin' On," "Love Child," "Someday We'll Be Together," Diana Ross and The Supremes
"Fingertips (Part 2)," "Uptight (Everything's Alright)," "I Was Made To Love Her," Signed, Sealed, Delivered," "Superstition," "Sir Duke," "I Wish," Stevie Wonder
"My Girl," "The Way You Do The Things You Do," "I Can't Get Next To You," "Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)," The Temptations
"I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)," "(Reach Out) I'll Be There," "Bernadette," "Standing In The Shadows Of Love," The Four Tops
"Shop Around," "I Second That Emotion," "Tracks Of My Tears," "Tears Of A Clown," Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
"This Old Heart Of Mine," The Isley Brothers
"Brick House," "Easy," "Three Times A Lady," The Commodores
"Super Freak," "Give It To Me Baby," Rick James

Essential albums:

What's Going On (1971), Let's Get It On (1973), Marvin Gaye
Innervisions (1972), Talking Book (1973), Songs In The Key Of Life (1976), Stevie Wonder
Reach Out (1967), The Four Tops
All I Need Is Time (1973), Gladys Knight and the Pips
Make It Happen (1967), Special Occasion (1968), Smokey Robison and the Miracles
With A Lot O' Soul (1967), The Temptations
Other artists on the Motown labels: Marv Johnson, Barrett Strong, The Marvelettes, The Velvelettes, The Contours, The Elgins, The Originals, Brenda Holloway, Shorty Long, R. Dean Taylor, Edwin Starr, Syreeta Wright, High Inergy, The Dazz Band, DeBarge, Teena Marie, The Mary Jane Girls, Rockwell
Motown movies: "The T.A.M.I./T.N.T. Show" (1965), "Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever" (1983), "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" (2002)

Solo Piano

Dianthe "Dee" Spencer is a Professor of Music in the School of Music and Dance at San Francisco State University where she founded the jazz studies undergraduate degree program in 1990. She earned and Ed.D from the University of San Francisco; M.M. from Washington University in St. Louis; and a B.S. from Florida A&M University. Dee served on the piano faculty at Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA.

Dee served on the governing boards of the International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE) and the SF Chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS). She currently serves with the Stanford Jazz Workshop, and the Community Music Center.

She is past director of the Clifford Brown/Stan Getz Fellowship Award combo for the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts (NFAA) and the GRAMMY All-Star National High School Jazz Combo. Dee currently directs the SFJAZZ All-Star High School Ensemble. This ensemble competed at the Essentially Ellington Competition for Jazz at Lincoln Center in 2002 and 2003. She was musical director/conductor for the TheaterWorks production of RAISIN'.

As a keyboardist, Dee has recorded with former Tower of Power vocalist Lenny Williams and Aretha Franklin's favorite drummer Bernard "Pretty" Perdie. She was a featured performer at the Beijing, Cork, Tasmanian, and Dresden International Jazz Festivals. In various settings, Dee has performed with jazz greats Louis Bellson, Clark Terry, Branford Marsalis, John Handy, Greg Osby, Jeff "Tain" Watts, Regina Carter and R&B sensation LEDISI. Dee's debut CD, Vintage School was released in 2002.

ALVON JOHNSON

Vocal and Solo Guitar

This is one man that can send any woman out of her mind with his soulful voice and moving guitar music. If you have ever seen and heard Alvon, then you know his singing and playing his guitar can send you into ecstasy with his soft, soothing sexy voice and then turn you into a wild woman with his magnificent guitar playing and body movements. This is a true showman, and he gives his all in all of his performances. If you have not been to one of his shows, you owe yourself this one pleasurable evening with a man that can change your life in just one night. You will be glad you did. 

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