Soulstu Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 OK this could get answered pretty quickly by you lot. Here goes... I've often wondered (usually when daydreaming at work) why The Supremes were on Tamla, The Tops were on Motown, Velvelettes on VIP etc etc...Gordy! Soul!, Rare Earth!..well that one speaks for itself...you get my drift. Did Berry Gordy draw the artists names out of a hat and just divvy them up? Are there any particular differences between how the labels were perceived or run? It's not as though particular styles were funnelled through a particular label....or is it? Why couldn't everything be released through, say, Motown? Also I wonder, did artists cross over from label to label willy nilly? Can't even think of any who did - wonder who was released on the most labels? Actually I've just checked and Kim Weston's been on Tamla, Gordy and Soul, so... Over to you...
Bigsoulman Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 Tax purposes perhaps? Gordy was a very shrewd boss and ripped off his artists big time without even batting an eyelid so it wouldn't surprise me if he did this to avoid paying some kind of taxation or something like that. 2
Popular Post Jimmy Mack Posted January 21, 2014 Popular Post Posted January 21, 2014 all to do with payola in the states if a radio station was s een to be playing say 5 motown records then the radio station would be in trouble so berry gordy and other labels had to have multible labels so not to draw attention from the irs . 5
Steve G Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 Soul was more of a soul / black label i'd say after Gordy bought the name from carmen Murphy ooh 64 I think…..rare Earth was a white label for pop / rock…..VIP for lesser known acts….Other than that just a case of having several labels to get round suspicion of payola….DJs wouldn't play too many records on a single label in the 60s because the Feds would come and investigate whether they were being paid by the record company…..So to get more product played companies had more than one label….sorry a bit rushed but hopefully you'll get the drift. 2
The Yank Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 (edited) Also, a lot of companies started subsidiaries it was thought that radio stations might not play a new release on a label because it would be perceived they were showing favoritism towards a label. The Gordy label was started when Berry found out his first wife Thelma was going to start a record label called Gordy. Soul was supposed to be for the harder R& B releases. ps- What Kim Weston is on Soul ?? Was obviously typing a lot of this while the other answers were being posted. Edited January 21, 2014 by the yank
Soulstu Posted January 21, 2014 Author Posted January 21, 2014 All starts to make sense chaps. Never about the music, always about the money. 2
Soulstu Posted January 21, 2014 Author Posted January 21, 2014 Also, a lot of companies started subsidiaries it was thought that radio stations might not play a new release on a label because it would be perceived they were showing favoritism towards a label. The Gordy label was started when Berry found out his first wife Thelma was going to start a record label called Gordy. Soul was supposed to be for the harder R& B releases. ps- What Kim Weston is on Soul ?? Sorry! shows how much I bloody know. 1
The Yank Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 Don't worry about it. Thought I'd forgot something.
Soulstu Posted January 21, 2014 Author Posted January 21, 2014 Thanks everybody - been wondering about it for 35 years, answered in about 6 minutes! Top notch. 3
Guest Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 Gordy's initial plan was to own/manage a music publishing company......a tool to write/produce/publish songs, because that's where the money was made. The music industry was famous for ripping off artists, with the 'ownership' the key to the money. He set up shop to produce the songs...he advertised production and recording facilities.....artists would pay him to record songs. but he lost money on royalties with other record companies handling product. Eventually (folklore suggest Smokey), he realized that by doing the whole operation, he stood a better chance. So, a music label was formed....The Tamla label was to be named TAMMI (because he loved the Debbie Reynolds pop song). But somebody beat him to it...hence, TAMLA. As the other posts suggest, radio playlists dictated numerous labels. Also, key to this was Distribution deals.....different firms handled the labels, so a 'hot' distributor handled Motown only........a firm on a cold streak therefore didn't handle ALL Motown product.
Robbk Posted January 22, 2014 Posted January 22, 2014 Gordy's initial plan was to own/manage a music publishing company......a tool to write/produce/publish songs, because that's where the money was made. The music industry was famous for ripping off artists, with the 'ownership' the key to the money. He set up shop to produce the songs...he advertised production and recording facilities.....artists would pay him to record songs. but he lost money on royalties with other record companies handling product. Eventually (folklore suggest Smokey), he realized that by doing the whole operation, he stood a better chance. So, a music label was formed....The Tamla label was to be named TAMMI (because he loved the Debbie Reynolds pop song). But somebody beat him to it...hence, TAMLA. As the other posts suggest, radio playlists dictated numerous labels. Also, key to this was Distribution deals.....different firms handled the labels, so a 'hot' distributor handled Motown only........a firm on a cold streak therefore didn't handle ALL Motown product. Good point. He could get better deals and service from distributors by threatening the easy move of X label to one of his other distributors. just like the various labels were parcelled out to various distributors, the talent within Motown had to be divided up among the various labels, so he could get more records played per any given time due to the "payola" restrictions. He wanted to have records played from all 5 of his labels, so the talent had to be shared accordingly. Gordy was really just a name change from Miracle to Gordy, to stop Thelma Gordy from naming her record label (really her parents' and Don Davis' label) "Gordy. They ended up using "Thelma". And THAT was really a name change from "DaCo" (Davis/Coleman).
DeltaSouth Posted January 22, 2014 Posted January 22, 2014 (edited) https://motownjunkies.co.uk/labels/vip/ these web sites have a lot of info on the motown stable of labels. https://www.bsnpubs.com/motown/gordystory.html Edited January 22, 2014 by vinyldisc
Daved Posted January 22, 2014 Posted January 22, 2014 In terms of allocating artists to labels, I gather there wasn't any system or raionale behind it.
Tezza Posted January 22, 2014 Posted January 22, 2014 You ask a simple question !! Always love the stuff you get back, like going back to school. Great post/replies guys 2
DeltaSouth Posted January 22, 2014 Posted January 22, 2014 the music that came out of motown kept many of us shaking our (_!_)'s back in the 60s and 70s, here in the USA lil stevie wonder was one of my personal favorites. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO8nlZKrVi4
Guest Motown Junkies Posted January 23, 2014 Posted January 23, 2014 There were some artistic differences between the labels - though whether they were intended is another question entirely! Supposedly in the very early days (1959 to early 1960), the idea was to have solo artists record on Tamla and groups on Motown, while Miracle was the low-profile third-string label for unknown acts, apparently initially conceived as something for Miss Ray to keep busy... (I've seen Gordy described as a rename for Miracle, but that's not really supported by the facts - people jump to that conclusion because it started right after Miracle closed down, and the Temptations and Valadiers were transferred from Miracle to Gordy, but if anything Mel-o-dy was the low-profile "replacement" for Miracle - Gordy seems always to have been conceived as a third "major" Motown label, needed because by 1962 the volume of releases was causing further payola concerns.) As mentioned, VIP started as a West Coast specialist imprint (like MoWest 10 years later) before becoming the low-budget catch-all label; Soul was aimed at restoring some of Motown's credibility with black radio and in particular jocks who'd turned away from Motown (and towards the likes of Stax) as they started having pop hits - obviously plenty of Soul releases still became pop hits anyway!; Rare Earth was initially meant for FM rock but quickly became Motown's dumping ground for pretty much any white act, regardless of musical style. As for the three big names? There were minor differences, though we're talking about big, sweeping overall trends rather than individual examples, and as I said at the top, whether the differences were intentional is another question. Very broadly, Berry Gordy positioned Motown Records as the "flagship" label in terms of white radio, with the Supremes and Tops but also a lot of MOR and standards type releases, almost none of which ever appeared on Tamla or Gordy between 1964 and the mid-Seventies. Much of the big, ambitious, critically-acclaimed projects - the "artistic" and "socially conscious" material - seemingly ended up on Tamla (Smokey, Marvin, Stevie) rather than Motown. Gordy was where most of the harder-edged R&B chart action was; I always thought the Pips would have been better on Gordy than Soul, alongside the likes of the Temptations, Martha Reeves or Edwin Starr. But these could all be accidents of history and bookkeeping rather than a defined musical policy. Anyway, thanks for the link
Soulstu Posted January 23, 2014 Author Posted January 23, 2014 Cheers Steve, Fantastic explanation. All makes perfect sense now. I'll listen to your shows when I get home.
Agentsmith Posted January 23, 2014 Posted January 23, 2014 love(d) this thread......just goes to prove.."SOUL PEOPLE DO WHAT IT SAYS ON THEIR TIN"
DeltaSouth Posted January 25, 2014 Posted January 25, 2014 i just discovered this feature at the 45cat web site. interesting stuff. https://www.45cat.com/label/motown-us
Guest turntableterra Posted January 25, 2014 Posted January 25, 2014 (edited) a good site, seen a couple of pic sleeves i never knew of.in berry`s book, lucky to be loved, he says something like that tamla was for single artists and motown was for groups but even after the first release that was forgotten about Edited January 25, 2014 by turntableterra
Guest Andrew Upshall Posted January 29, 2014 Posted January 29, 2014 https://motownjunkies.co.uk/labels/vip/ these web sites have a lot of info on the motown stable of labels. https://www.bsnpubs.com/motown/gordystory.html Thanks for this, I'm learning fast!
DeltaSouth Posted January 29, 2014 Posted January 29, 2014 you are quite welcome, andrew. soul is one of my favorite genres, since the 60s fairly sure that isn't going to change. :^)
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